Depressing recital

Press, 29 July 1980, Page 6

Depressing recital

By

JOHN PATTINSON

"Small, but appreciative” is the description usually, reserved for the kind of audience which greeted the baritone, Barry Mora, and the pianist, Michael Houston, at their recital in the James Hay Theatre last evening. Perhaps this could largely, although not wholly, be held to blame for the oyer-all depressing effect of this performance. The . programme ■ looked promising: a series of love songs by composers ranging from the seventeenth century Italian to the twentieth cen- ; tury French schools, with Schumann’s “Dichterliebe” as the climax. <■. . In the Italian group one could not escape the con- ■ viction that the lover deserved all that he didn’t get, . the . pathetic bore! Only in the Durante song, when the earthly, object of worship is

replaced by the Virgin Mary, did piety give way to passion on both the part of the singer as well as the composer. In the “Don Quixote” group of Ravel, the hopeless hero wins our sympathy on account of his sheer spirit of enterprise, and the singer is here offered more expressive scope. This' opportunity was only partly grasped, and one felt that Barry Mora could have injected more variety into these songs, more humour, more joie de vivre — especially into the final drinking song. ; Mr Mora has-a superb instrument at his ■ disposal, with a . rich, darkly powerful quality at either end of his compass. However, ..even this can become a little tiresome after a while, and one longed to hear some mezza voce tone, some change of “colour".

Schumann’s “Dichterliebe”. demands this kind of variety, from a sense of hope and joy

at the outset, via anger at the cycle’s turning point “Ich grolle nicht”, through nightmare and on to eventual resignation. One felt that these emotions were lurking below the surface of this interpretation, but needed painting with a broader brush. Michael Houston accompanied impeccably : throughout. He has a fine technique allied to an imaginative poetic sensitivity, heard not only in the important postludes of “Dichterliebe" but in the “Cantos de Espana” of Albeniz. The toccata-like prelude displayed technical mastery’, as well. as ; beautifully controlled shadings of tone and dynamics. Regrettably even Mr Houston’s attempts at the. more subtle nuances,; Tailed at times to draw much in the way of seductive tone from the unsympathetic, and ill-tuned, instrument provided for his use.