David Wickham, piano. Photograph supplied.
The second of four projects in Wickham’s SwanSongs series for 2016, this recital upheld the high standard we have come to expect from anything put out under the Wickham banner. Sara Macliver, a native of Western Australia, is well-known throughout the country as a concert performer with a particular bent for the Baroque era. For this performance, however, she selected items from later composers, including the near-contemporary Samuel Barber.
Sara Macliver, soprano.
The printed program listed the items in reverse order – Barber-Mendelssohn-Grieg, which caused your reviewer a certain amount of confusion, as the performers did not explain that they were in fact performing them the other way around until the after interval. It did not help that the Grieg works were from his song-cycle Haugtussa, which was completely unknown to me. I realised it could not be Barber, since the language was foreign – but what the heck was it? Not English, not German, not French, not Italian …
It was, of course, Norwegian. I breathed a sigh of relief when the program change was explained, and by that time I really didn’t care what Macliver sang, as a long as she kept singing. She has great clarity and purity of tone, with every note precisely placed, even in complex passages. Wickham’s accompaniment was, as always, sympathetic and sensitive.
The Mendelssohn bracket was likewise new to me, apart from the lovely ‘Auf Flugeln des Ganges’, better known in English as ‘On Wings of Song’. In fact this was the only song in the entire recital that I’d heard before. Macliver obviously has skills in the linguistic department as well as the musical one, for she delivered the entire bracket in German.
For the final bracket, Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs Op.29, Macliver changed into a long black skirt, complemented by enormous jet earings. The outfit shrieked ‘Drama’, and indeed the Barber songs fulfilled the promise. From its intense opening, this song-cycle runs the gamut of human emotions. Not easy material to master and perform, either technically or expressively, this section was undoubtedly the most challenging for the performers and the audience alike. Macliver had certainly earned the enormous bunch of flowers presented to her at the end of the performance by a little girl who was barely larger than the bouquet.
I’m sure that one of the purposes of the Swan Songs season is to give performers a chance to try out new material and to educate audiences in styles rarely performed. However, if other concert-goers are like me, they would prefer more balance between popular classics and experimental or lesser-known works. The concert, well-presented and performed as it was, left me feeling a tad overwhelmed by new and strange material. Heck, stick with Grieg and gimme a bit of Peer Gynt. I’m sure Macliver would do Solvieg proud.
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Solace
Sara Macliver with David Wickham
Perth Town Hall
4 September 2016
