This afternoon’s Off Centre concert at the Glenn Gould Studio was structured around three pairs of composer friends; Mozart/Haydn, Schumann/Brahms and Wolf/Mahler.  It was a mix of lieder, opera excerpts and piano pieces and was pleasantly varied.

Things kicked off with Russell Braun singing a number of songs from Schumann’s Liederkreis accompanied by his partner, Carolyn Maule on the piano.  This was maybe the third time that I’ve heard Russell in recital and he really is impressive.  He has a really good command of a wide range of dynamics and tone colour and lovely floaty high notes.  If I was being hyper critical I’d say I think there’s a point in the middle voice though that can’t quite sustain the volume he sometimes tries to get.  He has quite an operatic approach to lieder (compared to, say, DFD) but that’s quite fun in its own way.

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