What better way for soprano Rowan Pierce and pianist, Christopher Glynn –
who is also the artistic director of the Ryedale Festival – to begin their
2020 Ryedale Festival Online recital, than with Purcell’s consoling
assurance? And, the duo offered us just that – 45 minutes of beguiling
music, recorded in All Saint’s Church, Helmsley.
In this opening song, from Purcell’s Oedipus, Pierce’s lovely
bright soprano seemed to soar on a breeze of optimism above the steady but
buoyant tread of the piano’s ground bass. A slight quickening in the
central episode, with its images of a defeated Alecto – the snakes dropping
from her head, and the whip falling from her hands – heightened by Pierce’s
careful enunciation, was followed by the slightest relaxation into the da capo repeat: a small nuance, but a powerful emotive effect. She
employed a more intimate tone in ‘O Solitude’, which also walked with a
fairly brisk step, helping Pierce to create a cohesive structure from the
long, evolving phrases. It did mean, though, that some of Purcell’s
decorative twists and turns lacked a certain spaciousness – and some of the
vocal curls encompass some tricky spirals! Occasionally, the soprano added
her own tasteful ornament, enhancing the introspective mood as the phrases
unfolded like innermost thoughts and reflections. Glynn’s continuo
elaborations were varied in texture – sometimes sparse with brief melodic
inflections, elsewhere fuller flowing chords – and became increasingly
flamboyant, at times less than idiomatic perhaps, but always complementing
the growing intensity of the vocal line.
Romantic lieder followed. Schubert’s ‘Im Haine’ had a delightful spring in
its step – a woodland walk during which woes were assuaged by warm
sunbeams, murmuring breezes, and whispering scents. I can never hear
Schumann’s ‘Du bist wie eine Blume’ too many times: Pierce’s soprano
acquired a velvety plushness and smoothness here, which was complemented by
Glynn’s low cushioning chords. This is a brief lied, but Heine’s poem holds
within its beautiful simplicity rich and varied feelings – from sweetness
to sadness, from the certainty of love to the fear of loss – and Pierce and
Glynn made each emotion speak from the music’s own heart. Mendelssohn’s
‘Auf Fl¸geln des Gesanges’ rippled with easy fluency, Pierce’s soprano
flowing pure and free, on the ‘wings of song’.
Christopher Glynn. Photo credit: Gerard Collett.
The broader canvas of Richard Strauss’s ‘Ich wollt’ ein Str‰usslein binden’
allowed Pierce to extend the range of vocal colours while her clear, light
soprano seemed equally tailor-made for the moments of both melodic
restlessness and tranquil poise. The accompaniment was airy, and the duo
shaped an eloquent, vital narrative of wishes frustrated and hopes forlorn.
Goethe tells a similar tale of unfulfilled promise and faded flowers that
do not bedeck the beloved’s breast in Grieg’s ‘Zur Rosenzeit’ (which Pierce
sang in German). Glynn’s gently pulsing syncopations established the
momentum of the Allegretto tempo, as if propelled by the inner
heaving of the poet-speaker’s heart, while Grieg’s modifying serioso was captured by the sustained focus and intense precision
of the intervallic vocal melody, an intensity deepened by Glynn’s
thoughtful heightening of the inter-phrase commentaries.
Three traditional songs permitted a little relaxation of the Romantic
urgency and yearning, introducing a milder note of wistfulness. The gentle
warmth and the shining clarity of ‘Blow the Wind Southerly’ was an absolute
joy, while in her unaccompanied rendition of ‘How blest are shepherds’,
(which appears in Purcell’s King Arthur), Pierce focused less on
the rhythm of the pastoral dance and more on the story-telling,
articulating the text with utmost care, decorating the melody with the
naturalness of a folk singer and flexibly teasing the rhythms at times to
convey subtle changes and nuances – a slight diminuendo, rallentando and pause affectingly enhanced the pathos of the
reflection, “And when we die ‘tis in each other’s arms”.
Turning to songs from their native land, Pierce and Glynn began their
English sequence with John Ireland’s ‘If there were dreams to sell’. The
dream that the protagonist of Thomas Lovell Beddoes’ poem wishes to buy is
a “cottage Ione and still, with bow’rs night, shadowy, my woes to still”:
Pierce conveyed this yearning with gleaming directness and sweet sincerity,
the longing deepened by Glynn’s sensitive emphasis of harmonic nuances.
Alan Murray’s ballad, ‘I’ll walk beside you’, introduced a not unwelcome
touch of sentimentality, while Quilter’s ‘Love’s Philosophy’ glittered with
youthful exuberance and confidence.
At this time, when life as we have known it can seem lost in eons past,
perhaps irrecoverable, Flanders and Swann’s ‘The Slow Train’ was an apt
choice, lamenting as it does the passing of another age and way of life,
one brought about by Beeching’s closures of railway stations and branch
lines in the 1960s. To Glynn’s trundling locomotion, Pierce catalogued the
list of places to which the slow train would no longer be travelling with
clear-voiced resignation and regret. Introducing this song and the final
item in this recital, Strauss’s ‘Morgen’, as she expressed her hope that
the listening audience would “hold in your hearts the idea of live music,
and sharing a space, sharing the emotions in real time, right next to each
other”, Pierce had the glint of a tear in her eye. By the time she had sung
Strauss’s paean to ‘tomorrow’ when the sun will shine again and the lovers
will “gaze in each other’s eyes in love’s soft splendour glowing”, I had
many tumbling from my own. For a while, music had indeed spun its beguiling
spell.
This recital
is available to view until Sunday 16th August 2020. The full
2000 Ryedale Festival Online programme can be viewed at
until the same date.
Claire Seymour
Music for a While
: Rowan Pierce (soprano) Christopher Glynn (piano)
Purcell – ‘Music for a While’, ‘O Solitude’; Schubert – ‘Im Haine’;
Schumann – ‘Du bist wie eine Blume’; Mendelssohn – ‘Auf Fl¸geln des
Gesanges’; Strauss – ‘Ich wollt’ ein Str‰usslein binden’; Grieg – ‘Zur
Rosenzeit’; Trad. Three folk songs; Ireland – ‘If there were dreams to
sell’; Murray – ‘I’ll walk beside you’; Quilter – ‘Love’s Philosophy’;
Swann – ‘The Slow Train’; Strauss – ‘Morgen!’
Recorded at All Saints’ Church, Helmsley; Friday 24th July 2020.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Rowan%20Pierce%20Jen%20Hart.jpg
image_description=
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product_title=Music for a While: Rowan Pierce (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano) – 2020 Ryedale Festival Online
product_by=A review by Claire Seymour
product_id=Above: Rowan Pierce
Photo credit: Jen Hart