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Alix Goolden Performance Hall
September 10, 2011
According to Peter Gammond's diminutive, but indispensable 1960s tome, "Bluff Your Way Through Music", one of the most difficult things in all music is to become a well-loved contralto. "The unloved ones", he continues, "end up singing Gilbert and Sullivan".
Given the era in which Gammond was writing, there can be little doubt that his exemplar of the "well-loved contralto" was the late Kathleen Ferrier. Even today, almost sixty years since her tragically early death at the age of forty-one, she inspires not just admiration, but, yes, love in her devotees.
Saturday night's recital by Susan Platts and Robert Holliston, a fine tribute to "Katie" (as Ferrier was known to family and friends), was divided into two distinct halves, each reflecting a major element of Ferrier's repertoire.
The first half opened with three short songs by Brahms. The first thing that strikes the listener when Platts opens her mouth is the sheer, mesmerising quality of her voice. It is a superb natural instrument, a warm, velvety tone which enfolds the listener.
But if it is the sound of her voice which sucks the listener in, it is the intelligence with which Platts uses it which keeps the listener spellbound.
The first song, Vergebliches Ständchen (Futile Serenade) gave her ample scope for characterisation, with its two characters acting out an all-too familiar scene - boy asks girl to let him into her room, girls says no, boy complains that the weather is terrible and his love will die unless she lets him in, girl tells him to get lost.
Not for the last time, the thoughtfully-provided translations of the text proved almost superfluous. I especially enjoyed Platts's knowing final dismissal of the young man's feeble attempts at seduction. (I could almost sense the vernacular here, which in Britain would be either "on your bike" or "sling your hook".)
After the Brahms a group of three Strauss songs followed, in which, once again, Platts demonstrated stunning control and a huge dynamic range, while Holliston's accompaniment - as throughout the evening - was beautiful and always sensitive.
There are three things which prevent Mahler's five Rückert-Lieder from being the greatest orchestral song-cycle in musical history: the first is the fact that, although written at the same time (1901), the five songs were not actually intended to be sung as a cycle; the other two are his Kindertotenlieder and Das Lied von der Erde.
Platts and Holliston closed the "serious" half of their recital with the complete "cycle", in performances which were as immaculate as I ever expect to hear.
The concentration of their performances was quite extraordinary - and, with one exception, a dropped pin would have rung out like a explosion.
The exception was, alas, the final song, "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" ("I am lost to the world") which is, for many, Mahler's single finest song. For some reason the audience in my vicinity became remarkably fidgety during this song - a pity, as Mahler singing and playing of this quality is not something one hears every day.
Holliston coped manfully with the accompaniment which, of course, cannot hope to fully reproduce the remarkable colours of Mahler's orchestration; but perhaps only those of us familiar with the originals noticed.
The second half of the programme was specifically dedicated to the memory of Ferrier and consisted of English songs and folk songs from Ferrier's own repertoire.
The surprises here were in the opening group of composed songs: one each by Stanford and Vaughan Williams, two by Roger Quilter. RVW's Silent Noon was simply gorgeous, the two Quilter songs were charming and exuberant by turns, but it is Stanford's A Soft Day which stands out in the memory, particularly its wonderfully delicate refrain: "while the rain dripped...dripped...dripped" with appropriately dripping piano.
Performing traditional folk songs as "art" songs is an inherently risky business; the singer has to steer a very narrow passage between the Scylla of sounding arch (and hence condescending) and the Charybdis of sounding twee (and hence condescending).
Platts - need I really say? - navigates these dangers with aplomb and complete success. The contrast between the mother and the eponymous Fidgety Bairn (making a rather more welcome appearance than during the Mahler) was delightful; Maa Bonny Lad (Holliston's own, fully worthy, arrangement) was deeply poignant; "I Know Where I'm Going" (with, for some of us, all of its associations with the 1945 Powell and Pressburger movie of the same name) was quite delectable.
For lovers of the voice - and the rest of us - this was a quite magical evening.
I see no danger of Susan Platts ever "ending up singing Gilbert and Sullivan".
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