Ian Bostridge does Mahler duty

yes I'm using that one same photo again

Ian Bostridge stopped by the Konzerthaus on Friday along with the ubiquitous Helmut Deutsch. His short recital program centered on the popular theme of DEATH, particularly death of a childlike or military bent, and included his contribution to the Mahlerjahr extravaganza, plus Weill and Britten. Outside Das Lied von der Erde, Mahler is a relative rarity on Liederabends by tenors, and I was unsure how Bostridge’s slender, clear sound would work out in this repertoire. For the opening, a set of early and Wunderhorn lieder, the answer was not so well. Bostridge’s voice just lacks the muscle and heft that I personally hear as necessary in songs like Das irdische Leben and Revelge. (And honestly with regards to the opening juvenilia, I continue to find Helmut Deutsch's forays into Really Early Mahler Lieder not very interesting.) Bostridge's interpretations of the first few songs were uncharacteristically flat (though in the final song, Revelge, he overcompensated), text mistakes plentiful, and pronunciation oddly dodgy. More lyrical songs like “Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen” were more successful but still muted--and I found Deutsch’s layered playing more interesting than Bostridge’s singing.

Luckily he improved with a super Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, expression following every turn of the text and a powerful momentum to the third song, the vehement “Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer,” dying down for a celestial “Zwei Blauen Augen.”

The second half was songs that were entirely new to me. Kurt Weill’s Whitman songs are set to four very familiar militaristic poems, including even “O Captain, my Captain.” Deutsch provided the military music in “Beat! Beat! Drums,” but the mood of most of the songs is a languid, cabaret-influenced jazziness that is most unexpected for soldiers. However, it kind of works, making the texts seem not so overwhelmingly tragic, and the dirge of the “Dirge for Two Veterans” is familiarly Weill-y. And Bostridge sang in English with idiomatic ease. The four selections from Britten’s op. 84 set “Who are these children” (set to poems by William Soutar) were unsettling and haunting, with an air raid siren sounding through the final song, and delivered with intensity.  Encores were the altogether sweeter “She never told her love” and thematically appropriate and energetic “Sailor’s Song,” both from Haydn’s English Canzonettas, and Purcell’s “Music for a while.”

This was my second Konzerthaus liederabend with a focus on dead children this season. Lieder, always the cheeriest art.

Ian Bostridge, tenor; Helmut Deutsch, piano. Konzerthaus, 5.27.2011. Program: Mahler, "Frühlingsmorgen," "Erinnerung," "Das irdische Leben," "Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen," "Revelge"; Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Weill, Four Walt Whitman Songs. Britten, "Nightmare," "Slaughter," "Who are these children?" and "The children," from "Who are these children," op. 84.