Life Victoria ★★★★✩
Performers: Sarah Connolly (mezzosoprano), J. Middleton (piano)
Place and date: Sant Pau Modernist Complex (10/XI/2023)
Spiritual plenitude and special attention to the word, with these sensations, the mezzo Dame Sarah Connolly closed her long-awaited recital together with a very delicate Joseph Middleton on the piano. And if the heart of this Liederabend was composed by Mahler, we must point out the stately style imposed on the Brahms, with special attention to the Two Songs for Alto Voice with Viola and Piano, Op. 91.
Here the originality of the formation, where Brahms wanted to pay tribute to his admired friend, the musician Joseph Joachim, merged with the technique of the violist Laia Capdevila, the extreme elegance in the expression of Connolly and the musicality of the pianist Middleton.
With the arrival of the Rückert-Lieder, Connolly displayed his renowned mastery of color in text. Where the articulation, the weight of each word and the intention and inflections gave an ascetic approach to the characteristic world of Mahler's lieder. Delicacy and meditation that they had in Um Mitternacht and in Ich bin Der Welt abhanden gekommen two musical zeniths.
The stylistic contrast with Debussy's Trois chansons de Bilitis was like a ray of sunshine in the middle of the twilight. Here Connolly demonstrated the chameleonic ease of his diction and Middleton's piano shone with special brilliance, who did justice to the Debussian piano universe with a superb use of the sound chromaticism of the compositions.
The closing with the Kindertotenlieder, with beautiful previous songs by the British Frank Bridge, Ernest John Moeran and Ivor Gurney, demonstrated Connolly's maturity in the service of the text. Modulations, articulation, emission control and that difficult gift of “saying while singing” like a true priestess of the lied.
The recital can be recovered from the LIFE Victoria Barcelona YouTube channel.
