In the first of four Schumann recitals – two this month (the second follows on Thursday), two next April – regular duo partners Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber treated a packed Wigmore Hall to a glorious evening of Lieder. Their recital was all the more satisfying for its focus on less familiar but top-drawer songs, with the poignant Kerner Lieder at their heart.
Schumann enthusiasts grab any chance to hear these twelve settings of poems by the composer’s contemporary Justinus Kerner, not so much for their rarity value (less of an issue today than it was even a decade ago) than because they reward closer acquaintance at every re-discovery. Gerhaher himself has described these doom-laden songs as a “half-Winterreise” – a neat summary, not least since much of the style is unmistakably Schubertian. The 35-minute sequence deals in rainstorms, longing and drink, not to mention “Stille Liebe” and “Stille Tränen” (silent love, silent tears), so the territory is familiar.
Gerhaher’s speaking voice is self-effacing, shy even, but when he unleashes that ravishing baritone the colours and humours mesmerise the ear. His timbre has beauty across the range, with a lower-middle register that’s the aural equivalent of a loving embrace. Its warmth is allied to a fierce intelligence and a temperament that sees music and text as equal partners. He is, in short, the complete interpreter of Lieder, a probing musician who is ideally suited to evoking the round earth's imagined corners through the medium of song. He unpacked the Kerner Lieder with a natural ease, dramatic in Lust der Sturmnacht, vocally at ease with the high writing that depicts the devout young girl in Stirb, Lieb und Freud, roistering boozily in Wanderlied. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, was his near-conversational storytelling in Erste Grün.
Huber breathes the same musical air as his partner; they interact with uncanny accord and almost literally sing with one voice. The pianist’s occasional segues from one song to the next were achieved with immaculate judgement and his musicianship never failed, whether in passages of instrumental tapestry or in Schumann’s angular piano breaks.
For the rest, their programme consisted of songs grouped by opus numbers. The three songs of Op.30 date from 1840, the same year as the Kerner Lieder, yet each had its own individual flavour. All the other groups were from 1850-51, Schumann’s most fecund years as a song composer. Die Hutte from Op.119, the latest group to be showcased, had a disarmingly direct story and a conclusion of touching simplicity (“where treetop towers over treetop, there have I built my hut”). Gerhaher’s guileless style here stood in contrast with the savagery of leaves trembling with rage in the next song, Warnung. Huber, too, bestrode the shifting moods like a colossus of the keys and brought a particular charm to the chromatic piano figures that accompany Röselein, Röselein!, the last of six enchanting songs from Op.89.
