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‘O for a muse of fire, that would ascend With these words, from Shakespeare’s King Henry the Fifth, Richard Pasco opened the Gala Concert at the end of The Samling Foundation’s masterclass week. ‘Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;’ Shakespeare’s prologue continued. The imperfections were in fact visual – lack of stage and scenery – not those of performance, and to the title, Words and Music, might have been added Artistry as those who performed overcame the physical limitations. Six young international singers had spent the week with their eminent elders, Sir Thomas Allen and Patricia MacMahon and, unusually perhaps, the distinguished actors Barbara Leigh Hunt and Richard Pasco. They had had the invaluable support, too, of the accompanists Malcolm Martineau and Simon Over and the voice specialist Paul Farrington. The personnel of this team emphasised the marriage of music and words and the nature of expression which lay at the heart of the week and of the concert. What might ordinarily have been a mere succession of assorted items became a skilfully devised sequence, linked and set off by Shakespearean and other poetry. The first part of the evening was devoted to the more inward world of the solo song. Each singer delighted the audience with well and lesser known works, ranging from Mozart to Britten. The second part opened with a shift of mood as Barbara Leigh Hunt recited the Yorkshireman’s comic account of his evening out to hear Messiah. This was followed by four operatic ensembles in which all, both the young and the experienced, clearly enjoyed acting as well as singing. Thus, sopranos Katherine Manley and Simona Mihai and mezzo-soprano Madeleine Shaw demonstrated their lyrical qualities in songs by Mozart and Richard Strauss. Stefan Holmstr ö m, baritone, gave a sensitively moving account of Finzi’s ‘Fear No More The Heat Of The Sun’, Benjamin Hulett, tenor, endowed Britten’s ‘A Chorister’s Burial’ with character and Marc Labonnette, baritone, produced sensuous and truly French tone in Gounod’s ‘Le Vallon’. Patricia MacMahon contributed Bush’s ‘It Was A Lover’, and Thomas Allen sang Stanford’s ‘O Mistress Mine’. Then all, again on equal terms, made the transition to the operatic stage with enthusiasm. Comedy, broadly speaking, was the theme in excerpts from Donizetti’s ‘Don Pasquale’, Britten’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ and Verdi’s ‘Falstaff’, in which the singers adroitly changed character as required – light, coquettish, dark, lovesick, foolish – most enjoyably exemplified in Marc Labonnette’s transformation from Don Giovanni to Falstaff, complete with prosthetic ‘corporation’. This was not the culmination of a competition. The young singers are already technically accomplished and established in their careers, and we witnessed not simply the interaction of teacher and pupil. It was rather the continuing development of very good singers in their ability to communicate the meaning of both music and text, in inspiring company. Through this demanding programme Malcolm Martineau and Simon Over provided distinguished piano accompaniment. They drew musical sounds, pianistic and orchestral, from a less than adequate instrument with consummate skill and sensitivity. Over the whole enterprise Sir Thomas Allen exercised his benign influence as guide and partner. Howard Layfield |
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