Thursday’s RBA concert featured members of the Ensemble Studio singing German Lieder.  First up were tenor Angelo Moretti and pianist Kimly Wang with Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte.  Although this is probably the first true “song cycle” in German I feel it doesn’t get done nearly as often as the better known Schubert and Schumann cycles and it’s really pretty interesting.  I think it was also my first time hearing Angelo sing in German and he’s really very good.  This was a well articulated, rather beautifully sung set with equally skilled accompaniment.

Next was a selection of six songs from Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch sung by Ben Wallace with Elisabeta Cojocaru at the piano.  I think Ben must have been to German baritone school because he sang with great vocal expression while scarcely moving a muscle.  It would have done credit to Christian Gerhaher on both counts!  So more very classy, very classic Lieder singing.

Emma Pennell, with Kimly, made the bold choice of two Strauss songs.  “Beim Schlafengehen” from the Vier letzte Lieder is a beast (for voice and piano) and it was done very well indeed; not perfect but very promising.  The same could be said for the almost as tricky “Zueignung” from the Opus 10 songs.  I love both of these songs dearly and I’m grateful that Emma was willing to give them a go.

Ariana Maubach and Elisabeta finished off with some Brahms and Korngold.  “Ständchen” was nicely characterised, “Glückwunsch” was rather beautiful and the rather dramatic “Von ewiger Liebe” was sung with lots of power without sacrificing beauty of tone.

All in all, a very satisfying programme delivered very well indeed.

Photo credit: Karen E. Reeves