Label: WIGMORE HALL Catalog: WHLIVE0031 Format: CD
Simon Keenlyside, baritone; Malcolm Martineau, piano
Songs by Schubert, Wolf, Faure and Ravel
Wholenote Discoveries - May 2010
The operatic baritone, as a rule, gets upstaged. It is the voice of villains, fathers, and older brothers. The tenor usually ends up in the spotlight and even in operas where the baritone is the central character, it is as an anti-hero (Hamlet, Robert Oppenheimer in “Dr. Atomic”). We are fortunate to live in times when there are several world-class baritones around who, aside from making appearances on stages around the planet also record their voices for our enjoyment. I have shared with the readers my feelings about the brilliant Thomas Quasthoff and Gerald Finley, so it’s time to wholeheartedly recommend Simon Keenlyside. During recent performances of Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet at the MET, Keenlyside in the title role overcame the insipid set and not fully cooked production and with the power of his voice transformed the opera into an intimate recital. Here, on record from Wigmore Hall, he offers the Keenlyside treatment to a sampling of lieder. His voice, aside from power and projection, possesses the agreeable timbre that’s impossible to describe, yet instantly recognizable. The singing is effortless, as if it were to him the most natural thing, like breathing. Keenlyside works very well with accompaniment, be it a piano or a full orchestra. Here, Malcolm Martineau deserves a special mention of his own. And to think, that at one time this gifted singer was considering a career in zoology, which he studied at Cambridge – the animals’ loss is most definitely our gain! Robert Tomas
Simon Keenlyside has proven himself one of the top baritones of the 21st century, and this new disc is evident of that. This latest installment of the Wigmore Hall Live Recital series features Keenlyside singing a mix of Schubert, Wolf, Faure, and Ravel. Keenlyside is in fine voice and his burnished voice glides effortlessly through recording. The repertoire chosen certainly shows his versatility as a singer, but also this vocal fluidity that he possesses. A highlight is the often now-overlooked Schubert Lied 'Standchen' which is here as a sample track. There was a time when Standchen was a standard of any lieder recital and for some reason, it is forgotten by today's lieder singers. On the Piano, we have Malcom Martineau, who seems to have made a career out of accompaning singers in recital, as he has done with Bryn Terfel and Michael Schade to name a few. Martineau is at his non-obtrusive best. Like referees in sports, the best compliment an accompanist can get is 'I didn't even know you were there'. Such is the case with Martineau. He provides the perfect base for Keenlyside to shine. The times called this 'possibly the most eloquent performance that this hall has heard in decades', and I'd believe it. Simon Keenlyside's Wigmore Hall recital is not to be missed!
"Everything that happens in your life - the good and the bad - is somewhere in my box of song texts or lieder or French song," said Simon Keenlyside in an interview with The Guardian.
On this live recording with Malcolm Martineau, Keenlyside covered considerable musical, thematic and emotional ground. The recital features songs by Schubert, six of Wolf's Morike-Lieder, settings of Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine and other French poets by Faure's and Ravel's five whimsical and discreetly anthropomorphic animal portraits, Histoires naturelles.
The BBC Music Magazine has described Keenlyside as "the greatest lyric baritone of our time, indeed one of the greatest of any time. He submerges his personality in the roles he portrays, and does it with virtually unique insight and completeness. Everything is built, however, on superb breath control and a remarkable capacity for colouring the voice, combined with flawless legato, the principles underlying all great singing."
While the subject above was a recording of operatic arias, the same praise applies to Simon Keenlyside in recital - he is not an artist who self-consciously imposes his interpretation on a song or on the audience; rather he subtly allows the words and the notes to speak for themselves.