{"id":997,"date":"2014-10-18T15:44:18","date_gmt":"2014-10-18T15:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/?p=997"},"modified":"2014-10-18T15:44:18","modified_gmt":"2014-10-18T15:44:18","slug":"a-great-winters-journey-at-oxford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/2014\/10\/a-great-winters-journey-at-oxford.html","title":{"rendered":"A Great Winter’s Journey at Oxford"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ian Bostridge<\/em><\/p>\n

This week I was present at the finest performance of Schubert\u2019s song cycle, Winterreise<\/em>, I have ever seen or heard. I am unable to review it properly, because I know both the performers. I have a profound and historic foodie connection with the tenor, Ian Bostridge, and the pianist, Thomas Ad\u00e8s, first signed our farmhouse guestbook in 1978, aged seven.<\/p>\n

The recital at the acoustically perfect Holywell Music Room (Europe\u2019s oldest concert venue) was part of the Oxford Lieder Festival, \u201cThe Schubert Project: Bringing Schubert\u2019s Vienna to Oxford,\u201d 10 October to 1 November. It bills itself as \u201cthe UK\u2019s First Complete Performance of Schubert\u2019s Songs\u201d (though there are concerts of other Schubert works as well as the Lieder). This is a feat the Austrian Schubertiade apparently will not achieve until its 2015 season.<\/p>\n

Among the Oxford events is Imogen Cooper playing the Piano Sonata in B flat major D960 at a late-evening concert in the same marvellous venue (I bought the last two tickets). Others are taking place in the Sheldonian and even the Ashmolean. The roster of performing artists as is distinguished as the three named above implies.<\/p>\n

What was so wonderful about the Bostridge\/Ad\u00e8s Winterreise<\/em>? In the first place, it is the first time I\u2019ve seen or heard it performed as an equal partnership between the singer and the instrumentalist. Tom, who is a celebrated composer and conductor, was no mere accompanist, but brought out the piano\u2019s role as equal soloist in all 24 songs, sometimes in contrast to the vocal part, sometimes simply providing a single note of harmony with the voice. His staccato notes were variously played with the force of a breaking icicle, or with the penetrative strength of a steel pin, but always with such power that I imagine the piano needed retuning after this set. The legato passages seemed fewer, but sang sweetly when called for, though gruffly when appropriate. In the final song, Tom became der Leirmann<\/em>, and his piano was transmuted into a hurdy-gurdy by his cross-hands action. My seat was only feet away from the keyboard, and I can tell you that his emotional involvement and concentration were equal to Ian\u2019s. He was in such precise control of his dynamics that you forgot that his Steinway is fundamentally a percussion instrument.<\/p>\n

Ian sang, without music, tucked into the curve of the Steinway concert grand, his gestures economical, though his facial expressions conveyed a strong emotional punch. In his voice I heard wistfulness, bitterness, misery, briefly remembered joy, despair \u2013 genuinely complicated feelings. He is, though, a musician whose performance always communicates intellect. Of course, he is a DPhil of Oxford University, an expert on the role of witchcraft in English public life in the 17th<\/sup> and 18th<\/sup> centuries, Humanitas Professor of Classical Music and Education at the University of Oxford, 2014-15 and will be a visiting professor at UC Berkeley in 2015. But as you can, I think, tell from his recordings, he applies this great intelligence to the words and setting of Schubert\u2019s greatest songs, in the service of their dramatic impact. Ian has a sympathy for both words and music that seems to me the product of careful study, as is his exquisite pronunciation of the German texts. His musicianship is equal to the great Schubert interpreters such as Fischer-Dieskau and Peter Schreier; and as for technique, there is no break between his head and chest voice, certainly less than you notice in Schreier\u2019s late recordings of Winterreise<\/em>, while Ian\u2019s chest voice seems to me increasingly firm and beautiful.<\/p>\n

Indeed, I think the Bostridge\/Ad\u00e8s duo is at least as fine as the recordings (see YouTube) of Schreier\/Richter and Fischer-Deiskau\/Barenboim. I see that Disc 4 of the Ian Bostridge Box Set to be released on 10 November has a second Winterreise<\/em> and well as the Disc 2 cycle with Leif Ove Andsnes. I suppose it\u2019s too much to hope that it\u2019s Ad\u00e8s on piano. The 14th<\/sup> Oxford Lieder Festival is 16-31 October 2015, and includes other composers along with Schubert. www.oxfordlieder.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

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Ian Bostridge This week I was present at the finest performance of Schubert\u2019s song cycle, Winterreise, I have ever seen or heard. I am unable to review it properly, because I know both the performers. I have a profound and historic foodie connection with the tenor, Ian Bostridge, and the pianist, Thomas Ad\u00e8s, first signed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blogroll-2","7":"category-elsewhere","8":"category-uncategorized","9":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbv6zV-g5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":998,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions\/998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}