Last night I went to hear Matthew Rose sing Wintereisse at Snape, and began the evening with supper at the Plough and Sail with Judy and David. It was such a treat to go out like this, and I was astonished that the pub side of the place was packed with early evening drinkers. Do people do this every night, or just on Fridays? I thought they were all tucked up at home like me. There's a whole other world out there. The concert was sublime, the music and singing subtle and poignant and beautiful, the piano accompaniment equally so. For an hour and twenty minutes the baritone sang without cease, his long body shifting gently from foot to foot, his hands sometimes clutching his jacket edges and pulling them together, sometimes kneading each other, and othertimes leaning back against the piano as he interpreted Schubert's ragged and ravaged musical emotions and Wilhelm Muller's pleading, tragic words. Schubert's music never fails to touch me deeply: my first marriage failed to the backdrop of his piano impromptus. My own recording of Wintereisse is sung by Brigitte Fassbaender, a doughty woman who I hope shrugged off the - mostly male - criticism that a woman cannot sing this song cycle. I hope she said "Bollocks", and this recording proves that she would have been right to do so. I'm playing it now. It's gorgeous.
The sun if very bright again, and every dancing mote of dust is highlighted in its beams. Massive sigh.
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| Flowers still looking wonderful |
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