The first of two DMA recitals I attended on Tuesday in Walter Hall was given by contralto Nicole Percifield.  It’s always interesting to hear this comparatively rare voice type; especially in an interesting and well thought out programme.

The first half of the programme was songs scored for contralto, piano and viola.  It’s intriguing because the range of the viola is very similar to that of a contralto.  In this case Grace Kyungrok Moon played viola with Joel Goodfellow at the piano for Brahms’ “Gestillte Sehnsucht” (from Zwei Gesänge, Op. 91).  The text is by Rückert and it’s definitely at the romantic/sentimental end of the spectrum.  It was pleasant to listen to with Nicole’s rich lower register brought out nicely.

I was not familiar with German-American composer Charles Martin Loeffler but we got to hear his Quatre Poèmes, Op. 5.  These are settings of Baudelaire and Verlaine and are predictably weird, if quite varied.  Nicole showed some versatility here with a powerful and impassioned “La cloche fêlée” and a playful account of “Dansons la Gigue!”.  Perhaps the most interesting was the final song; “Sérénade” where the singer has to match some really incisive, almost abrasive viola with lots of pizzicato.  It worked well.

After the interval it was all English language song for voice and piano.  Samel Barber’s Three Songs Op. 10 set texts by James Joyce.  These need (and got) power and expressiveness especially against the rather crazy piano part.  Next came Jonathan Dove’s settings of three poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay; Nights Not Spent Alone.  A certain, almost retro, formalism is married to intense expressions of sexual desire which Dove brings out with repetitive short phrases and driving rhythms.  There’s a pretty wide vocal range required too with some high passages and some very low ones.  Again, well executed.

Maybe my favourite set of the recital was a trio of songs by Herbert Howells.  “O my deir hert” sets a simple Scots hymn of praise in a gentle, lyrical way that allowed Nicole to show off that side of her voice.  There was more of that in Fiona Macleod’s text “Where there is peace” and, finally, there’s perhaps Howell’s most touching song; his setting of Walter de la Mare’s “King David”.  This was just beautiful.

And finally, Kurt Weill’s “Lost. in the Stars”.  This is perhaps my least favourite Weill song of all but Nicole’s unfussy presentation of its (cloying) sentimentality worked pretty well.