Recital
Joe Huber, baritone; Giséle Grima, piano
St James Cavalier

German lieder are a different kettle of fish and require a completely different approach.

This was evident when the following morning baritone Joe Huber sang Schumann’s Dichterliebe. After soprano Antoinette Miggiani, Joe Huber was an early pioneer of this genre in these islands and his love of the form is clear enough.

He was accompanied by Gisèle Grima, hats off to whom is due because the piano part is an integral part of the lied, complementing fully the singer’s job and having the last word, thus completing the picture already painted musically by the two artistes. Mr Huber too is blessed with a good and clear diction and this makes his singing more convincing and creditable. He was in good voice too and projected the message very well.

The Teutonic manner does not lack passion and tenderness but seems to be a little more restrained at times and this tends to make these lovely songs even more effective.

The singer was on good vocal form, his phrasing crisp and clear and he was able to move very smoothly from mood to mood in each and every one of the 16 lieder.

The attention to the least detail by both singer and pianist brought to life the musical picture thus painted by Schumann’s music and Heine’s lyrics. The mood alternated from the jolly to the sad, the solemn and the desperate, the poignant and the joyful abandon a poet’s heart in love, the joy and wonder at Nature’s beauty, of real situations as well as dreamy experiences. I would have been very sorry had I missed this joint tour-de-force.

Ms Grima had opened the recital with two of Liszt’s tone pictures from his Swiss travels. Very well too did she evoke the rippling lake waters in Au Lac de Wallenstadt and the tolling bells in Les Cloches de Genève. This was the last of the season’s Sunday morning recitals in aid of the internal restoration of the church of St Catherine of Italy across the road from St James Cavalier. They will be resumed after the summer break.