Piano and voice deliver a program chock full of passion
Love, in all its forms, was the order of the day in this live streamed Elder Hall Lunch Hour Concert by pianist Jamie Cock and soprano Lucy Stoddart.
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A fine concert for piano and voice in the latest of the Elder Hall Lunch Hour concerts, with experienced pianist Jamie Cock teaming up with recent graduate Lucy Stoddart to deliver a program chock full of passion.
Love was the order of the day, in all its forms, nascent, passionate, turbulent, and unrequited. Beginning with restraint in Michael Head’s charming A Green Cornfield, the passion bubbled away in Bellini’s understated Ma rendi pur contento, only to burst into full flow in a selection of Schumann songs.
The first, Widmung, is often ecstatic in its language, and the music matches it beautifully, at first propulsive, and later dramatic and almost uncontrollable. Ravishing.
On to some famous pieces, beginning with Gretchen am Spinnrade, the song that arguably founded the entire art song tradition. Cock was in fine form in the spectacular piano part. An Die Musik is also immensely and justly popular, and could hardly be a better piece for our turbulent times.
Cock contributed a selection of Liszt’s much-loved Consolations, so elegant in their simplicity – a rarity, in Liszt.
Stoddart was well up to the challenges of Sondheim’s Green Finch and Linnet Bird, where the singer gets not a whit of help from the accompaniment, whose impressionistic character is much in evidence in the piano arrangement.
Fauré’s Après un rêve was given with feeling, but without sentiment, while Poulenc’s languorous Hotel was a dreamy affair. Copeland’s Pastorale, with its radiant ending, sounds incredibly modern for a song from 1921.
A bonbon to conclude, Liza Lehmann’s There Are Fairies At The Bottom Of Our Garden, which could have done with a lot more give and take, and a lot less melodic variation. The lyrics are so twee that it really can’t be performed “straight” these days, so ham it up – but stick with Lehmann’s tune, thanks.
Jamie Cock and Lucy Stoddart
Elder Hall Lunch Hour Concert Live Stream
Friday, May 1 at 1.10pm