This was a homage to a giant of 20th century performance that was like no other. Summoned by the famed artistry of Benjamin Appl and James Baillieu, the spirit of baritone, conductor and über musician Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau moved with power and grace through the circular spaces of St Chad’s leaving none of the audience untouched. What a coup for the Shropshire Music Trust to book this pair, whose stunning musicality and intricate and in-depth programme had previously wowed London audiences, for a concert that combined affectionate celebration, biographical exploration through an exquisite selection of lieder – and the show-stopping talents of two of the best exponents of art song alive today.
A self-portrait by Fischer-Dieskau brooded over proceedings – all flashes of unexpected yet mellifluous colours; crepuscular shadows and tightly drawn angles of shade lifting and embodying the stern, human experience felt in his gaze and, of course, within all that glorious, critically acclaimed musical endeavour over the course of the mid to late 20th century. It was a gift to Appl by his erstwhile teacher and mentor bequeathed just before he died in 2012. And so Appl and Bailleau returned their gifts and captured with sincere and delicate homage, in their own musical painting, the interplay of variegated joys, love and the darknesses of tragedy that unspooled in the world of each chosen song, and in the life of ‘Fidi’ himself.
SMT’s artistic director John Moore acted as an artistic and direct narrator to deliver salient facts and letters of Fidi’s life, dovetailing with the musical items with great sensitivity and poise. That his brother Martin, an epileptic, was murdered by the Nazis; that he served on the Russian and Italian fronts working with horses, and began his career as a star turn on the POW circuit; that he was the first German musician to perform in the new state of Israel, and much more. Fascinating.
But it was the music that spoke with greatest eloquence. Brahms’ Four Serious Songs stood out as a centrepiece. Appl’s conjuring of the lyricism, arrow-heart in its address, the suppleness of tone and effortless empathy with Bailleau created extended moments of wonder. Early Romantic repertoire from Schubert and Tchaikovsky songs bore witness to the visceral connection between the great man and this music, yet the duo delivered with a spontaneity and élan that was all theirs; the 20th century pieces landed alert to the horrors and impact of their occasioning with particularly thought – Britten on Blake, for one, and Aribert Reimann’s ‘Tenebrae’ were unforgettably affecting. This was evening of a world-class music-making where the art of art song was left in no doubt – immediate, poignant, urgent, but enshrined lovingly in the ancestral haunts of unsurpassed genius. Du holde Kunst. Thou sacred Art. In Appl, it lives on.
James Fraser-Andrews
