EIF: ‘Winterreise’
Queen’s Hall - 19/08/22
There was a popular phrase used around Scotland in my youth - “They’re a’ oot o’ step wi’ oor Jock” - and I have to admit that I felt very like Jock at the end of this morning’s recital of Schubert’s masterpiece, ‘Winterreise’. Loud were the cheers and bravos, but grim were the thoughts of your reviewer, after the long journey from song 1 to song 24 in this cycle, written at the end of Schubert’s short life, to poems by Wilhelm Müller. Brought up on Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Hans Hotter, and having sung the cycle several times myself, I failed to understand why the audience was so enthusiastic about the mannered and, for me, flawed performance of Florian Boesch, accompanied superbly by Malcolm Martineau. The last time I saw this cycle at the Edinburgh Festival, the performers were Fischer-Dieskau and Daniel Barenboim, colossal figures whose ‘Winterreise’ that day was one of the seminal events in my musical life! Sadly, this extraordinary display of half-singing, crooning and yelling of high notes did not bear comparison with those great artists of the past, let alone my mentor and guru in all things Schubert, the incomparable Hans Hotter, who told me he preferred to sing Schubert Lieder even more than Wagner’s Wotan, in which role he has been universally hailed as the finest of all.
It may be that a lot of the enthusiasm for Mr Boesch’s ‘Winterreise’ was the enthusiasm of a new audience for Schubert’s masterpiece, and it is certainly true that the composer won out in the end. The warning signs for me were there right from the first song,”Gute Nacht”, in which the protagonist sets out from his lover’s house on his long journey to oblivion. He speaks of the hopes he had for the future, which have been quashed by the girl and her mother, who have rejected him for a wealthier rival. There was no line to Mr Boesch’s singing, little legato and a tendency to scoop and swoop, all of which broke up Schubert’s sublime melody. This mannered way of singing continued throughout the cycle, and whenever the singer broke out into full voice, he almost immediately crooned the next passage.
Now, I have nothing against crooning in the right place, indeed I love Crosby and Sinatra, but the place is not ‘Winterreise‘. It is true that Mr Boesch paced the cycle well, and told the story interestingly, but I never believed he was really involved in the story, despite his gestures and facial tics.
Malcolm Martineau accompanied sympathetically, and I assume he bought completely into the reading of the cycle, since some of his rubato was quite eccentric and modern-sounding, and, as ever, his playing was immaculate.
‘Winterreise‘ is one of music’s truly great masterpieces, but I wouldn’t like to hear it like this again.
Cover photo: Lukas Beck
