It’s always interesting when a top notch baritone (especially a native German speaker) and a first rate concert pianist get together to do Schubert’s Winterreise, which is, I suppose, the pinnacle of the Lieder repertory.  That’s what we got at Koerner Hall on Thursday with a performance by Matthias Goerne and Daniil Trifonov.

It rather goes without saying that such a duo have a command of dynamics, emphasis and colour that allows them to interpret the work as thye choose and so it becomes rather a matter of taste what one thinks of a particular performance.  One listener’s “subtle” is another’s “boring”.  My “well characterised” may be your “overly histrionic”.  People often have strong views about what is “proper” in performing Lieder.  For some a raised eyebrow is going rather too far.  Others will tolerate, or even welcome, a fair degree of physical story telling.

So how was the Goerne/Trifonov version?  It was not without subtlety.  “Irrlicht” and “Frühlingstraum” had considerable delicacy but, on balance, it certainly tended to the musically dramatic with some strong dynamic contrasts from both musicians.  The Opening of “Rückblic”, for example, was fast, loud and percussive and “Der stürmische Morgen” was very emphatic.  There were some interesting choices of tempi too.  “Das Wirtshaus”, for instance, was very slow.  The concluding “Der Leiermann” was a bit unusual too.  Somewhat understated perhaps but it had an eerie quality that was a bit unnerving and made a thought provoking ending to the cycle.

Goerne is quite physically demonstrative for a German Lieder singer.  Certainly he moves an awful lot more than say Christian Gerhaher.  I’m not sure that it’s storytelling though.  It seems more a sort of autokinetic reaction to the music and, honestly, I found it a bit distracting.

I’ve been lucky enough to hear some great singers and pianists perform Winterreise.  They are all different.  That’s the beauty of it.  This version had some things I really liked and some I wasn’t so sure about.  So it goes.

Photos: Barbora Krsek