Festival review: Waltraud Meier and Joseph Brienl; Usher Hall

IN A change to the originally intended artists for Sunday’s soprano and piano recital at the Usher Hall, replacing the indisposed Deborah Voigt with the German duo of Waltraud Meier and Joseph Breinl was an inspired move.

Bringing their extensive operatic stage experience to bear on a programme of Schubert, Schumann and Strauss lieder, Meier and Breinl evoked all the nuance of every setting in a character-led approach where the emotion of the poetry was paramount. Used to playing vast Wagnerian opera houses, Meier is a singer who can make the Usher Hall work for a vocal recital. With magnetic presence, even the quiet, gentle sounds of Du bist die Ruh blossomed to fill the space.

Moving to Schumann and his ever-popular Frauenliebe und Leben, Meier became a young girl, sharing the joys and pains of love with glowing radiance and moving tenderness in turn.

It was a first half that tantalised as to what she would do with Strauss’s Four Last Songs in the second. With piano accompaniment, the usual orchestral sound was undoubtedly missed, but the exquisite controlled beauty of Meier and Breinl’s performance was heart-stopping in its intensity.

Rating: * * *