Review - A Winter's Journey, Keswick Music Society

AT THE Theatre by the Lake, Keswick Music Society presented a winter work for a winter’s night.

Schubert’s song cycle ‘Die Winterreise’ contains just two dozen of his output of more than 600 songs, and they are considered to be amongst the finest in the entire lieder repertoire.

How fortunate, then, that the people of Keswick should have been given the opportunity to hear and experience the entire song cycle in the comfortable surroundings of the theatre.

The fact that the backdrop consisted of some of the scenery for The Snow Queen was not wholly inappropriate, and the artists in their long tail-coats and white ties delivered a memorable performance.

Timothy Nelson (baritone) was well prepared for his role, as there is a great deal of material to memorize, and he held our attention with his statuesque pose and clear German diction. There was a good deal of contrast between some of the gloomier items, such as ‘Einsamkeit’ (Loneliness) or ‘Letzte Hoffnung’ (Last Hope), and those in a major key, offering glimmers of optimism, like ‘Frühlingstraum’ (Spring Dream) or ‘Die Post’ (The Post). He displayed a wide range of dynamics, in spite of the theatre’s sometimes unhelpful characteristics in the quieter passages.

Ian Tindale (piano) demonstrated terrific fluency and precision, with never a slip, even in tricky items such as ‘Erstarrung’ (Numbness) or ‘Der stürmische Morgen’ (The Stormy Morning). At times, however, the piano, with its full texture, seemed to dominate the fragile vocal line, although always sensitively played. At times in this piece the piano, with its full texture and as an equal partner in the music, can dominate the fragile vocal line, but it was always sensitively played.

Both artists, and indeed the Keswick Music Society, are to be congratulated on what was an effective and original presentation of an important facet of classical music, and our understanding was greatly enhanced by John Cooper Green’s most informative pre-concert talk.

Ian Hare