Lieder by example
4th Oxford Lieder Festival
October 2005
Want to spend your evening winding down after a tough week of essaywriting and tutorials? If listening to flowing, sentimental melodies is your thing you would enjoy the concerts of the Oxford Lieder Festival, two weeks of concerts, master classes and workshops for music lovers.
I had the pleasure of enjoying two concerts, one by mezzo-soprano Anna Stéphany and pianist Jonathan Beatty, and the closing concert performed by mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly, baritone Stephan Loges and pianist Eugene Asti. In addition to these performers (all professional soloists who have received prestigious awards in international competitions) the festival presented seventeen more lieder concerts, ranging from song cycles to musical drama.
But, the most important role was played by the festival’s eponymous musical style: songs for solo vocalist and piano. Although the art of lieder was originally a purely German discipline, the performances in the festival were by no means monotonous. In Stéphany and Beatty’s concert, songs from seven composers, written in four different languages and spanning two hundred years were performed.
From the Italian Haydn arias to the English overtones of Grainger’s folk tunes, the performers succeeded in captivating audiences to the very end. Each piece was presented with such technical assurance and expressiveness that the audience was lost in a dreamy world of music.
When Stéphany sang Ravel’s ‘Asie’, the whole building echoed with the enchanting atmosphere of the Orient; with their performance of Grainger’s British Waterside, audiences wouldn’t have been surprised to see sailors marching across the stage! The closing concert presented a somewhat more conservative programme of Brahms, Hahn and Schumann but despite being less lively and rather more sentimetal in character was by no means less enjoyable Almost all the songs were centred on love - to
soppy and exaggerated for us modern people to believe? Not quite, for when the words were sung through the mouths of Connolly and Loges, audiences were convinced and, at least momentarily, bathed in sentimentality Even between songs, the audience was afraid to utter a word, for fear that the magical moment would be broken. The soothing voices of Connolly and Loges were best expressed in their duets, which were performed with artistic understanding and flair.
As for solo pieces, I was especially impressed at how Loges sounded so at ease with his music, even at the end of the two-hour concert. I was rather disappointed at the grand total of two students in the audience— apparently not enough promotion had been done around the University to create interest in the festival.
Don’t worry if you missed this year’s festival; the 5th Oxford Lieder Festival will be held from 14th to 28th October, 2006, and I am sure it will be continuing for many years to come.
10th Nov 2005