Odd couple: Goerne and Kissin are mismatched in Cleveland recital

Baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Evgeny Kissin launched a three-city North American recital tour at Severance Music Center in Cleveland on Sunday. Both men sit at the top of their respective genres but, at least on paper, they seemed like an odd couple. Goerne’s voice only gains in beauty and resonance as he ages, yet his deeply personal interpretations of the Lieder repertoire can sometimes strike the ear as mannered and fussy. Kissin’s Romantic expressivity at the keyboard often compensates for a lack of interpretive vision. These elements clashed in a program of Schumann and Brahms, though hopefully the talented pair will find themselves on smoother footing when they reach Carnegie Hall in two weeks’ time.

The afternoon began with a confounding Dichterliebe. Goerne remained bound to a music stand – odd for a cycle he has performed for decades – and appeared to view the audience as a hostile, imposing force. He spent most of the 30-minute duration staring at the score or at Kissin, alternately swaying and swooning with a hand firmly planted on the lip of the piano. He deployed a meltingly lovely head voice, but attempts to darken his sound in the lower register came across as hoary and artificial. Goerne and Kissin had syncing issues from the start, falling out of balance in the transition from Im wunderschönen Monat Mai to Aus meinen Tränen sprießen, and a sense that Kissin’s tempos were pushing Goerne to his breaking point in Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne.

Matters improved somewhat as the cycle continued, although Kissin’s tentative playing suggested only a recent mastery of the score. Goerne’s Ich grolle nicht was commanding and forceful, his Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet especially soulful. Kissin thundered in the crashing chords of Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome and brought a wry humor to the little postlude of Und wüßten’s die Blumen, die kleinen. Yet deficits remained. I’ve rarely heard the long piano solo that closes Die alten, bösen Lieder sound so mechanical.

Kissin had his own moment to shine at the beginning of the second half, and he seemed more comfortable alone in the spotlight. Brahms’ Op.10 Ballades don’t get as much airing as his later music for solo piano, but they can be soulful and beguiling in the right hands. He employed a full color palette in the First, building from a whisper to a full-throated shout – thanks, in part, to generous use of the sustaining pedal – and brought a soft, lullaby-like texture to the Second. The Third emerged with zesty, Eastern European rhythms. Only the extended Fourth disappointed, sounding shapeless in Kissin’s expansive but unfocused interpretation.

In a series of Heinrich Heine settings by Brahms, Goerne sounded more comfortable in contemplative depths of Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht and Meerfahrt, his voice taking on a dusky, haunted quality. He brought a stentorian tone to Lieder und Gesӓnge, Op.32, building to a fervent Wie bist du, meine Kӧnigen. Kissin again seemed to be finding his way into the score, his head buried in the keys, a sense of struggle perceptible even when the playing sounded gorgeous. Goerne rarely encores in my experience, but he and Kissin finished the afternoon with Schumann’s Mein Wagen rollet langsam, which was more lively and relaxed than much of what preceded it.