Listen to Simon Keenlyside's Edinburgh Recital

Simon Keenlyside at Edinburgh (right)

For the next four days one can enjoy Simon Keenlyside's amazing recital with Malcolm Martineau from the Edinburgh Festival on August 20th. The program contrasted English songs of regret and lost innocence in the first half with richly romantic German lieder in the second half.

Keenlyside and Martineau bring together songs from Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad, a touching evocation of a vanishing pastoral England, and Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel, which explore the innermost thoughts and longings for home of soldiers on the front line.

The rich melodies of Schumann’s gripping mini-drama Ballade des Harfners are a fine contrast to the touching pastoral evocations of Wolf’s Fussreise and Blumengruss. For an encore, Keenlyside performs Britten's The Fly from Songs and Proverbs of William Blake. Click HERE to listen to the recital.

You can next catch Keenlyside live at the Royal Opera House where he opens as the title character in Verdi's Rigoletto, in a cast that includes Saimir Pirgu as the Duke of Mantua, Aleksandra Kurzak as Gilda and fellow barihunk Duncan Rock as Marullo. The opera runs through October 6th and additional information is available online.

Here is the entire program for the Edinburgh recital:

Ireland: Sea Fever
Somervell: Into my heart an air that kills
Vaughan Williams: Youth and Love
Eisler: Spruch 1939
Somervell: There pass the careless people
Butterworth: When I was One and Twenty
Gurney: In Flanders
Butterworth: Think no more, Lad
Butterworth: The Lads in their hundreds
Butterworth: On the Idle Hill of Summer
Ireland: Vagabond
Trad: The three ravens
Eisler: Despite these miseries
Eisler: The only thing that consoles us
Finzi: Fear no more the heat o' the sun
Vaughan Williams: The Vagabond

11:40 (during the interval)
Wagner: Siegfried Idyll

12:00
Schumann: Ballade des Harfners
Wolf: Fussreise
Wolf: Denk es, o Seele
Wolf: Blumengruss
Wolf: Lied vom Winde
Wolf: Schlafendes Jesuskind
Wolf: Wie sollt ich heiter bleiben
Wolf: Christblume II
Wolf: Nimmersatte Lieve
Wolf: Lied eines Verliebten
Wolf: Storchenbotschaft

Markus Werba sings Brahms

Markus Werba antiqued

Here are five Brahms songs performed by barihunk Markus Werba and pianist Gary Matthewman. This is from an October 2010 performance at Wigmore Hall in London that was broadcast on BBC 3.

The set includes:
Vor dem Fenster, Op.14'1
Ein Sonett, Op.14'4
Der Gang zum Liebchen, Op.48'1
Murrays Ermordung, Op.14'3
Alte Liebe, Op.72'1
O kühler Wald, Op.72'3
Unüberwindlich, Op.72'5

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Celebrating Carl Loewe's Birthday with the Amazing German Bass Hans Hotter

Carl Loewe and the great Hans Hotter

Carl Loewe (Löwe im Deutsch) was a German composer, baritone singer and conductor. In his lifetime he was dubbed the "Schubert of North Germany." A number of his 400 or so songs are still performed and he wrote beautifully for his own voice range.



The beauty of Lowe's music earned him a grant from Jerome Bonaparte, then king of Westphalia, which allowed him to continue his studies in music and theology at Halle University. While living in Stettin (Szczecin) he did most of his work as a composer, setting a version of Goethe's Erlkönig in 1824 which some say rivals Schubert's far more famous version. He went on to set many other poets' work, including Friedrich Rückert, and translations of William Shakespeare and Lord Byron. He also wrote a number of operas, oratorios and instrumental works.



His treatment of long narrative poems, in a clever mixture of the dramatic and lyrical styles has been copied by many composers since his day.

Hans Hotter (1909 – 2003) was a German bass-baritone, admired internationally after World War II for the power, beauty, and intelligence of his singing, especially in Wagner operas. He was extremely tall and his appearance was striking because of his high, narrow face, wide mouth, and big, aquiline nose. His voice and diction were equally distinguished.