BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, 12/06/2023 (1)

Song Prize - Recital 4

12) William Thomas, bass (28, England) - Simon Lepper, piano

Brahms : Denn es gehet dem Menschen

Poulenc : Mazurka

Mussorgsky : The He-Goat

Stephen Adams : The Holy City

All three of this afternoon's recitalists were in last night's concert round, so the qualities of the voices were known and expected.  First up was William Thomas, the youngest competitor, and one already promised to a fine career, even without his exposure here, which is why yesterday I said I would not be happy to see him in the Grand Final.  The Song Prize, though, is a slightly different matter, because the art of the recital is an infinitely subtle one, far less likely to get bogged down in stereotypes.  In opera, audiences tend to want to hear you sing the same thing, if they've liked it.  In recital, they always want something new.  Thomas began with one of Brahms's Four Serious Songs, wonderful material for a bass voice, and he brought warmth and solemnity to it.  The Poulenc "Mazurka" suffered from somewhat mushy French, and we lost the repeating pattern of "font, font, font" that marks the text so strongly.  Mussorgsky's "The He-Goat", on the other hand, was excellent, slyly ironic and humorous.  Thomas ended with one of the pious Edwardian salon pieces once so hugely popular, Stephen Adams's "The Holy City", very much in the vein of Sullivan's "The Lost Chord".  My seat neighbour assured me it was the kind of thing that you used to hear sung in South Wales pubs of an evening; I knew it because in the '70s Benjamin Luxon explored this Edwardian repertoire with gusto.  It's a little hard to take it seriously, but Thomas delivered it with ringing fervour, simply showing off the strength and rich colour of his voice, never mind the sentiment.

13) Simone McIntosh, mezzo-soprano (31, Canada) - Llŷr Williams, piano

Trad. (arr. Britten) : The trees they grow so high

Schubert : Ganymed

Duparc : Le manoir de Rosemonde

Strauss : Morgen

Strauss : Cäcilie

Like last night, McIntosh had pretty well the most interesting programme of the whole proceedings.  She began with one of Britten's folk-song arrangements, a bitter-sweet ballad that began and finished unaccompanied, while the piano part built up and ebbed back beneath it, sparse and clean.  "Ganymed" was elegantly delivered, but the Duparc song that followed suffered from unclear French, and too slow a tempo.  With the Strauss songs, she made a small tactical error, in my opinion, and should have reversed the order of performance.  "Cäcilie" was good, but just a little too restrained for the soaring passion of its text and music.  "Morgen!", however - "Morgen!" was absolutely perfect.  You could have heard a pin drop in the auditorium, so utterly rapt the audience became with the complete harmony of intent between McIntosh and Williams, the notes like pearls dropping, one by one, into a still, smooth pond, creating quiet, smooth, even ripples that returned to stillness.  That was a breathtaking performance, and worth the price of admission to the whole Song Prize event all by itself.

14) Sungho Kim, tenor (32, South Korea) - Llŷr Williams, piano

Schubert : Danksagung an den Bach

Schubert : Am Feierabend

Schubert : Der Neugierige

Poulenc : C

Landon Ronald : Prelude

Isang Yoon : Gopung Usang

Kim came on stage wrapped in a traditional Korean coat in silver-grey, over dark trousers, a striking and attractive fashion statement, that went well with the open, expansive personality suggested by his singing.  He reined the voice in well for the Schubert, songs 4 to 6 of Die schöne Müllerin, which is certainly a tenor's song cycle if ever there was one, but there was still a bit of a tendency to ham it up visually, notably in the second song of the group.  "C" suffered from murky French, nor did he quite know what to do with the piano subito on "délaissée" at the end, and the tricky chromatics were a little blurred - if I pick at this song in particular, it's because it's one of my favourites and I do know it very well.  Landon Ronald, however, was completely unknown to me, though I gather it's a favourite with tenors.  The idiom is something like a cross between Richard Strauss and Ivor Novello, there's a big, bold, post-Romantic flavour to the piano part, but the vocal line has that Edwardian salon touch to it again.  At any rate, Kim threw himself at it with gusto, and Llŷr Williams was visibly having fun with it too.  The last song was by Isang Yoon (or Yun), active all through the middle and late 20th Century.  As a composer, he was primarily known for his fusion of Korean traditional instrumentation with Western avant-garde techniques.  However, this particular song, which according to the programme book is an appreciation of the poet's beloved in festive garb, sounded like a drinking song, upbeat, up-tempo and exuberant, and this too Kim delivered with vim and vigour.

At the end of this round, the judges announced the five singers who will be going through to the Song Prize Final on Thursday evening.  However, so as to let the radio audiences catch up, there's an embargo on that information till Thursday afternoon so, sorry, you'll just have to wait.  I will say, however, that I'd really like to understand better what the judges' criteria were, because with one exception, I was absolutely not in agreement with their choices.  Not that anyone was bad, just that I don't see most of their selection really profiting from a victory in this category.  

[Next : 12th June]