Ian Bostridge sings Die schöne Müllerin

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

English tenor Ian Bostridge recently sang a Wigmore Hall performance of Schubert’s song cycle Die schöne Müllerin accompanied by pianist Saskia Giorgini captured and now released by Pentatone (PTC5186775, CD).

Needed for a great performance of Die schöne Müllerin, to begin with, are a keen pair of interpreters – the pianist not merely an accompanist but a sensitive artist with a gift for both following the singer and for imprinting on Schubert’s piano part the collaborative artist’s viewpoint, one consonant with that of the singer.

As for the singer, a gifted artist is required, one endowed with a supple vocal instrument capable of singing twenty songs, many of them strophic, avoiding sameness and with the ability to imbue each song with a gamut of colors ranging from melancholy, to passion, to anger and to ultimate resignation.

While tenor Ian Bostridge has enjoyed a successful career primarily as a recitalist and concert singer since making his professional debut at the age of 27, today his vocal instrument betrays some wear and tear, most evident in the top range that once was easy vocal territory for his light lyric voice. While  he is fully in command of the most dramatic of the songs in the cycle – Ungeduld, for example, in an earlier recording with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, today at age 56 he has to reach for the top notes in that song, creating the impression of discomfort in that part of his voice and evidencing some roughness in his tone.

Ian Bostridge is still capable of singing with utter gentleness the more lyrical songs in the cycle – Wohin, for one, and the final sequence of Trockne Blumen, Der Müller und der Bach, and Des Baches Wiegenlied.

Schubert wrote these songs for the tenor voice, although he later transposed them to medium voice keys accessible to baritones, such as Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, Gerard Souzay, Mathias Goerne, and Hermann Prey. Tenors Jonas Kauffmann, Christoph Prégardien, and Fritz Wunderlich among countless others have sung and recorded Schubert’s song cycle  Die schöne Müllerin in the original keys all with a modicum of success. I prefer the recordings of baritone Hermann Prey and tenor Fritz Wunderlich, both of which attain vocal perfection and the ability to get across the words of Wilhelm Müller.

To summarize, throughout his thirty year career Ian Bostridge has achieved many glories. Perhaps   the time has come for him to reconsider his repertory choices, so that we can remember him not only as the great singer of three decades ago but as one of today’s most skilled concert singers.

Rafael de Acha  www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”