Linton Recital Lovely, Intimate
With its performance home in the cozy sanctuary of First Unitarian Church in Avondale, the Linton Music Series is always an intimate experience.
That experience, with the audience literally surrounding the musicians, was enhanced even more Sunday afternoon (Feb. 26) with a recital for voice, piano and violin. (Thought to ponder: Does Linton know something the Music Hall "revitalizers" do not?)
Making their Linton debut were baritone Thomas Meglioranza and pianist Reiko Uchida in songs by Franz Schubert and Louis Spohr. Joining them in Spohr’s Songs for Baritone, Violin and Piano, Op. 154, was violinist Timothy Lees. Lees, concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and a Linton regular, also performed Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22, by Clara Schumann and Beethoven’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Minor, Op. 23.
It was an occasion to sit back, sigh and indulge in romantic music at its most “up close and personal.”
Though he also does opera, oratorio and sings with orchestras, Meglioranza, 41, was to Lieder (songs) born. He possesses a smooth, focused baritone that illumes text precisely and an engaging stage presence to go with it. (He introduced each of his songs with spoken comment.) He and Uchida, with whom he performs and records, worked hand-in-glove on six Schubert songs. All of them dealt with winter and looking ahead to spring – ironically, as it turned out, said Meglioranza, considering Cincinnati’s uncharacteristically mild February.
He and Uchida opened with “Winterlied” (“Winter Song”), a kind of “Let it Snow” ditty, with the singer, who has his love to keep him warm, content to have January last forever. Uchida stirred agitation into “Sehnsucht” (“Longing”), where a composer, missing his beloved, is thankful to have at least managed to write a song. “Winterabend” (“Winter Evening”) floated gently away at the end, giving way to the lovely “Im Frühling” (“In the Spring”). Here, Meglioranza demonstrated a beautiful, even tone across his full range and projected the wistfulness of a man recalling a past love. He capped the questions in “Frühlingssehnsucht” (Wohin? Warum? “Where? Why?”) with an emphatic Nur du (“Only you can free the springtime in my breast”). A highlight of the Schubert set, performed with drama and tenderness by Meglioranza and Uchida, was “Viola,” which tells the story of a violet that emerges from the soil before the other Springtime flowers and finding herself alone, dies of sorrow (metaphor for a forsaken bride).
It was a treat to hear Lees, most often seen leading the CSO at Music Hall, in recital. In fact, it was good to watch Lees, to see how he gets the beautiful sound he does and articulates so eloquently. Clara Schumann’s Three Romances, one of the last things she wrote before giving up composition at age 34, received loving treatment -- from the sweet gestures of the opening Andante to the concluding, impassioned Leidenschaftlich (ardent). Lees and Uchida gave a brilliant performance of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata in A Minor. A passionate work in one of Beethoven’s passionate keys, its emotive content was fully conveyed by both players – “stormy” might be the word for the Allegro molto conclusion. The concert ended just as the sun was setting, with Spohr’s “Abendstille” (“Evening Stillness”), a picture of the world at rest under a blanket of night.
The next concert of the 2011-12 Linton season is April 1 at First Unitarian Church, with pianist Michael Chertock, violinists Pamela Frank and Andy Simionescu, violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama and cellist Matt Haimovitz in works by Robert Schumann, Adrian Pop and Gideon Klein. Information and tickets at www.lintonmusic.org, or call (513) 381-6868.