Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Rating: ***
The Dutch bass Robert Holl has developed a formidable reputation on the European mainland, both for his operatic performances and as a singer of lieder. Whether that reputation is entirely justified was, however, open to doubt at this Schumann recital.
A number of factors contributed to the evening's awkwardness. Holl seemed to be having an off night. During the first half of the concert he repeatedly cleared his throat as if suffering from a cold. There is little doubt as to the quality of his voice, a huge, dark sound with a wide-ranging palette of tonal colouring, but there were moments of unwieldiness and suspect intonation. Only after the interval did he seem to settle down. Most of the time, Holl sings with his eyes shut or downcast, as if lost in a world of meditation, and you can't help feeling you're being kept at arm's length.
His programme consisted of Schumann at his most depressive, culminating in the famous Eichendorff Liederkreis, with its images of exile and existential isolation. It was here that Holl finally struck form, generating a palpable sense of unease. The opening song, In der Fremde, was plangently introverted. The weird confrontation between the narrator and the seductive, destructive Lorelei opened up an abyss of sexual terror. With pianist Roger Vignoles at his superlative best, Auf einer Burg created an eerie resonance that seemed to echo through vast spaces. The closing song, Frühlingsnacht, far from implying emotional release from nightmare, hinted at mania.
Holl's variability in the first half of the concert was disquieting, however, particularly since he opted for two little-known sequences of songs, one of which is a masterpiece that deserves to be heard more often. This is the Lenau-Lieder, written in 1850 as Schumann's response to the news of the death of the poet Nikolaus Lenau. The sequence opens in a mood of deceptive optimism, with the depiction of a blacksmith cheerily forging a horseshoe. The mood gradually darkens until images of human mortality become omnipresent, before a sudden shift in gear leads to Schumann's contemplation of Lenau's soul being wafted heavenward. Though it ranks with other Lenau-inspired works by Liszt and Strauss, its impact here was intermittent.
Much the same can be said of Holl's performance of the Harfenspieler-Lieder, based on sections of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. Moments of terror and tragic intensity were offset by stretches in which Holl's vocal unease was more than once apparent.
