United States Schubert, Loewe, Vaughan Williams: Konstantin Krimmel (baritone), Ammiel Bushakevitz (piano). Park Avenue Armory, New York, 24.2.2025. (RP)
Schubert – ‘Der Wanderer’ D.489; ‘An den Mond’ D.193; ‘Hoffnung’ D.637; ‘Der Jüngling an der Quelle’ D.300; ‘Auf der Donau’ D.553; ‘Der König in Thule’ D.367; ‘Die Gruppe aus dem Tartarus’ D.583; ‘Nachstϋck’ D.672; ‘Erlkönig’ D.328
Loewe – ‘Herr Oluf’ Op.2 No.2; ‘Der du von dem Himmel bist’ Op.9 H.1 Nr.3b; ‘Erlkönig’ Op.1 No.3; ‘Geisterleben’ Op.9 No.4; ‘Der Totentanz’ Op.44 No.3
Vaughan Williams – Songs of Journey
Prestigious awards, rave evaluations and praise-worthy recordings preceded German baritone Konstantin Krimmel’s first North American recitals with Israeli-South African pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz. The rising German singer was in wonderful voice and blazed via a turbulent, emotionally-charged program of songs by Schubert, Loewe and Vaughan Williams on the Park Avenue Armory, assembly, if not surpassing, all expectations. Bushakevitz’s commanding efficiency was no much less spectacular.
Krimmel has a full-bodied baritone which he employs to specific emotion via ever-changing vocal colorations and an equally broad dynamic vary. Phrases are projected with pointillistic precision whereas the stream of the musical line is at all times maintained. Bushakevitz brings the identical qualities to the taking part in, particularly his distinctive consideration to element and his sense of drama.
The singer and pianist envisioned this system as a journey from the opening measures of Schubert’s ‘Der Wanderer’ to the terrifying conclusion of ‘Erlkönig’ by the identical composer. The excellence is critical, as in addition they carried out Carl Loewe’s setting of Goethe’s poem. To maintain the temper – rigidity is a extra becoming time period – Krimmel and Bushakevitz remained in character between songs and for the whole thing of every half of the recital.
‘Der Wanderer’ set the recital’s theme and temper. Krimmel sang the opening measures in a pale, wan, seemingly spent voice that captured the drifter’s cheerless restiveness. His voice was devoid of shade as he ruefully and quietly expressed the person’s realization that happiness existed all over the place however inside him.
In ‘Der Jüngling an der Quelle’, Krimmel’s voice danced effortlessly over Bushakevitz’s glowing accompaniment through which longing changed the despair of the prior songs. It was a particular ambiance to which they’d return in ‘The Infinite Shining Heavens’ from Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Journey, through which Krimmel captured a star falling to earth via the colours in his voice.
Baritones with a aptitude for drama are inclined to gravitate in direction of Loewe’s ballads. He composed over 400 songs and was dubbed the ‘Schubert of North Germany.’ Loewe was born in 1796, the 12 months earlier than Schubert, whom he outlived by forty years. An in depth good friend of Robert Schumann, Weber and Mendelssohn, Loewe carried out the primary efficiency of the latter’s A Midsummer Night time’s Dream Overture.
Krimmel sang two of Loewe’s best ballads, ‘Herr Oluf’ and ‘Der Totentanz’ in addition to his ‘Erlkönig’, which Goethe deemed superior to Schubert’s. The similarities within the settings are inherent within the poem, particularly within the musical depictions of the 4 characters – narrator, father, son and Erl King – whom Krimmel etched in distinct vocal colours. The track culminated with a horrific scream from the kid, adopted by a frantic gallop within the piano that ended solely with the daddy’s realization that his little one was lifeless.
In Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Journey, Krimmel gave voice to a heartier man for whom the open highway is dwelling, revealing his resolve and his regrets. There was steel in Krimmel’s voice as he expressed the traveler’s disregard for the climate in ‘The Vagabond’, however gold within the opening strains of ‘Vibrant is the Ring of Phrases’ which rang out thrilling and free.
Delicate, beautiful tones conveyed wistfulness when Krimmel sang of nature’s marvels in ‘Let Magnificence Awake’. Throughout ‘In Goals’, there was anguish in his voice when singing of a cavalier farewell to a woman, with Bushakevitz underscoring the person’s hope that she remembers him nonetheless with easy, eloquent taking part in. In ‘I’ve trod the Upward and the Downward Slope’, the ultimate phrases evaporated into skinny air as Bushakevitz started the postlude, which recalled all that had gone earlier than on this journey.
Krimmel and Bushakevitz returned to Schubert to finish the recital. In ‘Die Gruppe aus dem Tartarus’, singer and pianist painted the ache and desperation of the lifeless struggling probably the most horrific tortures conceivable with spine-chilling depth. The discharge of vitality on the climatic ‘Ewigkeit’ (‘Eternity’) was as dazzling because it was nightmarish.
The emotional tumult of ‘Die Gruppe aus dem Tartarus’ paled in comparison with the impression of Krimmel and Bushakevitz’s efficiency of Schubert’s ‘Erlkönig’. From the primary notes of the introduction, Bushakevitz propelled the story ahead with unrelenting vitality and pressure. Krimmel delineated the characters to a level, however this was full-blooded singing with no gimmicks employed to realize an impact. The kid’s despair was a determined, overpowering scream sung in full voice. It was the stuff of which nightmares are made.
Vaughan Willams’s ‘Silent Midday’ was the only real encore, which Krimmel promised would dispel the gloom forged by the recital. And so it did, with Krimmel caressing the sound of affection in smooth, shimmering tones to tender, shimmering sounds from the piano.
Rick Perdian
