Susannah Lawergren,
soprano
Bradley Gilchrist,
piano
The Song Company
Wesley Music Centre 6
October
Reviewed by Len Power
Having only heard Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’ song cycle sung
with the male voice, this performance by soprano, Susannah Lawergren, was
approached with great interest and a little trepidation.
Composed originally for the tenor voice by Franz Schubert in
1827 to a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller, it is the second of Schubert's
two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being ‘Die schöne Müllerin’
from 1823.
Susannah Lawergren performs both as a specialist ensemble
member and soloist bridging art song, opera, oratorio, early music and
contemporary music.
Piano accompanist, Bradley Gilchrist, studied in Perth,
Sydney and Madrid. He has given solo and
chamber music recitals across Australia and overseas.
The ‘Winterrreise’ song cycle details a man’s grief over a
lost love, taking us on an emotional journey from anger and despair through the
torment of false hopes and the path to resignation. The words of the poem refer clearly to a
man’s loss of the love of a woman. The
challenge for a female singer is to find a valid interpretation that an
audience can accept and relate to.
Susannah Lawergren chose to sing of the loss of a child.
It is the emotional content of the work that makes it so
powerful and, while the words in the poems are occasionally at odds with this
interpretation, it resonated so strongly that it worked extremely well. Singing the cycle entirely from memory – a
major feat in itself – Susannah Lawergren added considerable depth to her
performance with the well-thought out use of a scarf, a leafless tree branch and
spare movement to create a believable character for this journey.
Her singing of the cycle was superb throughout. Her beautifully clear soprano, accurate
pronunciation of the German text and the emotional range and pace of her performance
resulted in an extraordinarily moving and memorable experience of this great
work.
The playing of the accompanying pianist is equally important
to the success of any performance of this work.
Schubert’s challenging music ranges across the emotions of the traveller
and surrounds them with the sounds of nature and location. Bradley Gilchrist gave a brilliant
performance of this cycle from start to finish.
These consummate performers gave the audience a musical
experience that was exceptional. The
thunderous applause from the audience at the end of the concert was
well-deserved.
Photos by Peter
Hislop
This review was first
published in the Canberra City News digital edition of 7 October 2019
Len Power’s reviews
are also broadcast on the Artsound FM 92.7 ‘In the Foyer’ program on Mondays
and Wednesdays at 3.30pm.