Every live concert with an audience seems like a gift at this time. Gerald Finley is one of the classical music world’s great communicators and this opportunity to hear him, fresh voiced, ideally partnered by Julius Drake and full of things to say, was an exquisite treat.
Opening with a series a songs by Gabriel Fauré, including late song cycle L'horizon chimérique, Finley showed his great affinity with the French repertoire and language. He was particularly passionate and seductive in the beautiful Les Berceaux, while in the song cycle, he found a bleached, tragic tone.
Henri Duparc whose tiny repertoire of 13 chansons contain some of the most beautiful songs in French – or indeed in any – language. A collection of four were delivered here with authority and genuine feeling. The jewel in the crown of the composer’s output, L’invitation au voyage, was fabulously rich, dramatic and yet subtle in Finley’s hands, a whole life in a song.
The next stop on this transatlantic voyage was Samuel Barber, whose songs, many inspired by French chansons, represent the best of American songwriting. They are also the composer’s most personal utterances. From his first set of published songs, Bessie Bobtail tells the bleak story of a woman brought low by The Depression with a restless urgency. The Nocturne that followed has a convoluted melodic line which is at odds with its peaceful atmosphere, questing and mysteriously achieved here. Next up were three Joyce settings written during World War 2 and the final song of the set is a fervently anti-war depiction of a young lad sent to war and to his doom. Finley was at his most dramatic here, producing a terrifying weight of tone.