December 1998

New York City: Bryn Terfel: Recital at Carnegie Hall

In an era blessed with baritones and bass-baritones -- ones who are fond of presenting song recitals, no less -- Bryn Terfel occupies a niche of unusual distinction. "Niche" may be the wrong word, to the extent that it implies circumscription, since everything about Terfel is expansive -- big voice, generous heart, impressive intelligence, powerful projection, broad interpretive range. That's not to imply that he belts everything out. But as an inherently dramatic singer, even his sweet-toned pianissimos are writ large enough to ensure that listeners in the back rows won't be left out, yet without overstepping the bounds of a true pianissimo. Listeners who know his work principally from large-house opera will be delighted by the meticulous attention he lavishes on the interpretation of art songs.

He constructed his program on October 11 at Carnegie Hall with considerable imagination. Wolf can be rather a "singer's composer" (and therefore a risky curtain-raiser), but Terfel opened with three Wolf songs sure to capture the audience's attention, "Der Sänger," "Anakreons Grab" and the ultra-pictorial "Der Rattenfänger." He took charge of the room from the outset. In fact, this was perhaps the most distinctive aspect of his performance. Where most lieder singers maintain a certain reserve vis-á-vis their audiences, or even present themselves as objects to be venerated from a distance, Terfel assumes the role of a host whose responsibility is to entertain, to make everyone feel comfortable, and to offer whatever luxury he can afford. He doesn't do it through glamour, but rather through sincere affability. His spirit fills the available space. At Carnegie Hall, it projected to a sold-out house of 2,800. Two months earlier, in the 850-seat Martin Theatre at Chicago's Ravinia Festival (singing some of the same repertory), the welcoming effect was identical.

Gently caressed French mélodies followed the Wolf -- Debussy's "Nuit d'étoiles" and "Mandoline," Fauré's "Automne" and "Fleur Jetée" -- then the program's centerpiece, Brahms' "Vier Ernste Gesänge." This was a sovereign performance of Brahms' late, dense masterpiece. Terfel's noble interpretation made it seem as though Brahms had packed the emotional wallop of the entire German Requiem into these four songs. Still, Terfel's voice is colorful, and the palette he employed was more Tintoretto than Rembrandt. Malcolm Martineau's participation, here and throughout, was magnificent. At some point the mantle of Gerald Moore and Graham Johnson can be expected to fall on his shoulders.

Schumann's rarely performed ballad "Belsatzar" invited a bardic delivery, and three Schubert songs -- "Trinklied," "Ständchen" ("Horch, horch, die Lerch'"), "An Silvia" -- made up the chestnut component. Terfel sings beautifully in English (a fact the more remarkable given that it's his second language), making Butterworth's "Six Songs from 'A Shropshire Lad'" an unmitigated wonder of Housmanian observation and storytelling. Single songs by Parry, Quilter and Michael Head were programmed at the end. Essentially, they stood as the first three of Terfel's encores, of which three more would follow: Flanders and Swann's hilarious "It All Makes Work for the Working Man," Lerner and Loewe's treacle "Little Prince" (here taking on special significance as Terfel dedicated it to his second son, born the day before) and the Welsh song "Palm Sunday."

The cell phone that added an obbligato to the first Wolf song probably was in the pocket of one of the people who clapped after nearly every song (even interrupting the Brahms set). But it was the second telephone bell I'd heard in Carnegie Hall this season. It's time for music-lovers to start educating friends they might suspect of not having heard about the sanctity of audience silence.

- J.M.K.