Live audiences return to Wigmore Hall: Gerhaher and Huber show their Lieder class

Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber survey composers from Beethoven to Berg in a varied and deeply moving recital. 

In the first of four Schumann recitals, the regular duo partners treat a packed Wigmore Hall to a glorious evening of Lieder. 

The German baritone and his frequent recital collaborator perform tragic evocations of insanity in Lenau settings with intense impact.

The pleasure of Gerhaher’s comforting persona and his instinctive convergence with Huber’s pianism won over the Wigmore Hall audience – as they invariably do.

Whether one prefers more raw emotion and large-scale architecture or is thrilled by perfectly sculpted individual masterpieces, this was undeniably chamber music of the highest order.

Huber’s morbid piano here was chilling and pointed the way to a harrowing finale that never quite materialised.