Work: Vier ernste Gesänge (Four Serious Songs), Op.121

Sir Bryn Terfel is at the Royal Opera House for the new Peter Grimes, so Captain Balstrode could cross the Thames to sing some Lieder. 

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.

Despite some fascinating, impressive and often beautiful moments, the consistent refusal to give the audience time to applaud, pause and digest what they had just heard turned the evening into a wash of death songs.