by Kasper Jansen
Last night, the stage of the Dr Anton Philips hall in Den Hague was diminished by enormous black drapes for the 'Vocal Recital'. And starting with row eleven the following sixteen empty rows and the empty balcony were also covered with black cloth. Centerstage: a black Steinway, a pianist dressed in black and a singer dressed in black. Only the in-crowd could interpret this sinister setting: a meeting of the Secret Hague Society of Lieder-lovers. The Society will convene slyly for a long time to come since no posters are allowed to hang upon the darkly glittering glass exterior of the Hague concert hall. Lest the people of Den Hague discover what exactly goes on inside !
Because of this, the atmosphere within the Secret Society remains very intimate which is not without advantage. Before the singer continued after the break, he got talking to his audience. People could cough, albeit the singer remarked that singers themselves never cough. And the singer was astonished that in a city as big as Den Hague so few turned up for one of the most beautiful musical phenomenons: Lieder art.
Absence was certainly one thing that could not be blamed on the people present, but the singer did urge them to inform their friends and acquaintances about it for the benefit of other artists. Following which the singer continued with Schubert's lied 'Der Sänger' in which a singer is presented by a king with a gold chain as a token of his appreciation for his singing. But the singer deems a chain more suited for knights, he would rather have a gold cup filled with the best wine to wet his whistle.
The singer was Thomas Quasthoff, with his ideal timbre and strongly expressive delivery one of the greatest singers of this age. In the world centers of classical music his performances are among the highlights of the year. Quasthoff sung an exquisitely composed selection of Lieder by Loewe, Schubert and Brahms. Many of the texts dealt with singers, singing, birds and nightingales and with Tom der Reimer, who meets a blond Queen of the Fairies. She urges him to: "Nimm deine Harf und spiel und sing, und lass dein bestes Lied erschallen !"
Thomas Quasthoff's performance, excellently accompanied by Charles Spencer, was extremely penetrating, especially in this intimate setting without any visual distraction and for a very intently listing audience. Amidst the six highly expressively sung ballads by Loewe 'Edward', sung as a nightmare that drives you mad, was the main point: exemplary of early Romanticism in Edward's violent and distraught despair over the killing of his horse and of his father.
Schubert's 'Szene aus Faust', in which Quasthoff alternately sung the roles of the angry spirit, of Gretchen and of the choir with 'Dies irae' in an impressively contrasting manner, was followed by Brahms' 'Vier ernste Gesänge'. Quasthoff is inimitable when performing these late Lieder based on scriptural passages about death. In 'Ein deutsches Requiem' Brahms still comforted, but the first three Lieder are ruled solely by cynicism and a longing for death. God does not exist here, His existence is even implicitely doubted in these texts from Ecclesiastes. Love remains the only solace in the last lied after Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, but even that sounded hopelessly macabre.
NRC Handelsblad - 26 February 2002
original title: "In Den Haag zingt de zanger in het geniep"
translation by Jocy Briessinck