Over the years, we have known big pianists who like to accompany singers. (By the way, “accompany” is not a dirty word in my book. If it is in yours—you’ll need to find another critic!) Richter accompanied Fischer-Dieskau. So did Horowitz, on one occasion. Jean-Yves Thibaudet likes to accompany singers. So does Mitsuko Uchida. In an interview, Yefim Bronfman once told me that it was accompanying singers that really taught him how to play Schubert.
Now, are the big pianists as good as regular accompanists? As good as, say, Wolfram Rieger, Helmut Deutsch, and Kevin Murphy (to name three of my favorites)? Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t. Some pianists are so musical, they can do virtually anything.
Lately, Evgeny Kissin has been accompanying singers—Renée Fleming and Matthias Goerne. He did so last night, in Carnegie Hall. He accompanied Goerne, the great German baritone. They performed a program of Schumann and Brahms.
I had my doubts about Kissin, in a song recital. I don’t think of him for songfulness. For lyricism. For that which is cantabile. He is a great pianist, no doubt. But he can be blunt and percussive. “Vertical”—up and down—rather than “horizontal.” I would not have chosen him for lieder.
I would have been wrong.
My wrongness was clear from the opening notes—those of Schumann’s “Abends am Strand.” Kissin was very songful. He sculpted his phrases beautifully. He would do this throughout the recital. In addition to songfulness, he had vitality. Spine. There was no sagging in these songs. He has a real feel for this repertoire.
Only in a few songs did I think he was guilty of bluntness and percussiveness. One was “Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen” (from Schumann’s Dichterliebe). (By the way, it was Dichterliebe that Horowitz played with Fischer-Dieskau.) Do you remember the tagline from Laugh-In, “Sock it to me”? That’s what I think of, when Kissin plays this way.
But this playing was the exception. Kissin was noble and musical in this Liederabend. He was neither “soloistic” nor overly deferential. He was just right.
Matthias Goerne? For the last twenty-five years, I have reviewed countless of his recitals. (I could count them, but that would take some Google work.) All my reviews of Goerne are the same. In my defense, all his recitals are the same. Excellent.
He is the same physically. He sways, he does knee-bends, he goes up on his toes. He sings like Joshua Bell plays the violin. Musically, he is the same. He sings with great intelligence, exemplary German diction, and incredible beauty of sound.
Does one have to make allowances for age? Almost none. On lower notes, he cannot summon much loudness. Higher notes are more focused then middle or lower ones. Still, he is Goerne.
He made his New York recital debut in 1996 at the Frick Collection. Tiny hall. Last night, he sang in big ol’ Carnegie Hall. Would a smaller venue have been better? Yes, but you can sell a lot of seats for Kissin and Goerne.
The structure of the evening, I thought, was stupid. I have accused Kissin of being blunt, sometimes. Now I have been blunt. It was stupid. Goerne and Kissin started with three Schumann songs. Then, without pause, they went right into Dichterliebe (which is a song-cycle). Then, immediately, without pause, they went into their Brahms half. (There was no intermission in this recital.) There was no pause at all, till the end.
There was no distinction between songs. The three songs that began the recital (unrelated to one another); Dichterliebe (which comprises sixteen songs)—it was all the same, you know? Like a Muzak of lieder. Where did Schumann leave off and Brahms begin? Many could not have known. And the audience did not have a chance to digest, reflect, etc.
I can understand not wanting applause (sort of). I suppose I can understand some musicological point, if the artists were trying to make one. Still: stupid.
But a great recital.
Sitting in the hall, I felt a little nostalgic, a little sentimental. These guys have been with us for so long, and we have been with them. We first knew Evgeny Kissin, probably, in 1984, when he was twelve. He played the Chopin concertos in his red Young Pioneers scarf. And Matthias Goerne has been singing these sublime lieder recitals for all these years. Each man wears glasses now. It was extraordinary to hear them together. A privilege.