I last wrote of this pair at Wesley with great admiration and pleasure, especially for a work telling of a dying soldier's thoughts in WW1. That concert visited the romantics and the eras before our admittedly very transactional times, to use the current parlance. This return was equally satisfying for its training and skills in voice and piano but also a return to earlier times. This was a fascinating investigation into musical takes on Shakespeare's language by Gerald Finzi and Roger Quilter and a group of songs by Vaughan Williams. The program describes their takes as Shakespeare "rich and rhythmic ... in turns, witty, wistful and profound", Finzi "introspective and melancholic", Quilter "light and charming" and finally Vaughan Williams "reverent and human ... moments of serenity and soaring joy" in takes on music of George Herbert "deeply expressive and spiritual ... quiet intensity". Thus is artsong, I guess: intelligent and reverent, fabulously skilled and beautifully performed and quite distant from our times to my ears. Not that we couldn't do with some alternatives just at the moment.
Alasdair Stretch (baritone) was accompanied by Callum Tolhurst-Close (piano) at Wesley.
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