The last time I spent a day at the Oxford International Song Festival (when it was still under its snappier Oxford Lieder moniker), Konstantin Krimmel was one of the up-and-coming young singers filling a lunchtime recital slot. This time around, the German-Romanian baritone headlined the day with an evening recital at Holywell Music Room. With his regular pianist partner Ammiel Bushakevitz, their programme was centred around Ralph Vaughan Williams’ cycle Songs of Travel.
It’s wonderful to hear a foreign singer taking RVW to their hearts and singing him like a native. With crisp diction and vivid word-painting of Robert Louis Stevenson’s texts, Krimmel’s rendition conjured memories of a young Bryn Terfel – I can think of no higher praise. Expansive in Let Beauty awake, drawing out the bittersweet quality of Whither must I wander? and emphatic in Bright is the ring of words, Krimmel inhabited these songs warmly, sensitively partnered by Bushakevitz.
Krimmel is a great storyteller, heard to strong effect earlier in Schumann’s Fünf Lieder, Op.40. His supple baritone can harden for expressive effect, such as the chilling slow march of Der Soldat, based on a Hans Christian Andersen poem in which a soldier is tragically forced to join a firing squad, executing his closest friend.
Eusebius Mandyczewski (1857-1929) was a Romanian musicologist and publisher, who became an important figure in Viennese musical life, responsible for the first complete editions of Schubert and Brahms. He was a close friend of Brahms, who appointed him curator of his estate, so Krimmel’s pairing of songs by the two made for a fascinating second half.
Five of Mandyczewski’s Op.7 Romanian Songs gave a useful taster of this composer’s craft. The first few had a folkloric, strophic character, but Mormântul (The Grave) and Omul singuratic (The Solitary) plunge much greater depths, the latter a mighty song ending with Krimmel uttering a near howl of despair.
Bushakevitz got the Brahms set off to a vivid start with a dramatic introduction to Auf dem Kirchhofe (In the Churchyard). Krimmel’s velvety baritone caressed Wie bist du, meine Königin (How blissful, my queen, you are) before the tear-trembling melancholy of Die Mainacht (May Night). There was a pleasing symmetry to his humorous encore, for Charles Wolseley’s The Green-Eyed Dragon also ended Krimmel’s 2019 lunchtime recital.
Krimmel is a former member of BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme (2021-23). Both of the earlier recitals in the day featured current New Gen artists: baritone Andrew Hamilton and soprano Erika Baikoff. Each featured a song cycle not usually associated with their voice type: Hamilton tackling Ravel’s exotic Shéhérazade, usually the preserve of female singers; Baikoff singing Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte (To the Distant Beloved), usually performed by tenors.
I wasn’t entirely convinced that Shéhérazade suited Hamilton – the climactic note in Asie was snatched uncomfortably – but Michael Pandya’s piano support rippled evocatively. Hamilton was better suited to the Germanic repertoire of Schoenberg and Strauss, where his pleasant baritone and sharp diction served the songs well; the pp on “Ruh” in Heimkehr (Homecoming) was delicately done.
In the early evening programme, Baikoff cut a more accomplished figure, engaging the audience in eye contact and communicating the meaning behind the songs. Her compact soprano has bell-like clarity but the way she coloured the voice, with note-bending and dynamic swells, really ‘sold’ the repertoire. At its centre was Mieczysław Weinberg’s Rocking the Child, a cycle of eleven songs on poems by Gabriela Mistral. Melancholy lullabies, they are shot through with loss and bitterness, aided by Baikoff’s sense of stillness. The seventh song, Rosa (Dew) was especially touching.
An die ferne Geliebte was nicely polished, but her four closing Strauss songs were outstanding, floating the word “Elysium” at the end of Das Rosenband beautifully, and Ständchen was rapturous, with deft, twinkling accompaniment by Oxford Song mastermind, Sholto Kynoch.
