Charm offensive: Simon Bode and Igor Levit at the Wigmore Hall
Lieder by Mendelssohn, Korngold and Wolf
Simon Bode and Igor Levit
Wigmore Hall
14 May 2017
Stalls E4, £5 (under-35 ticket)
Wigmore page
I bought this ticket primarily to see what all the fuss was about with Igor Levit (I know, I know, about three years after everyone else); also because I really, really enjoy most of Wolf's Mörike Lieder, also because the Wigmore Hall is generally a pleasant place to be. And so it proved on this Sunday afternoon, with Levit and the tenor Simon Bode delivering a highly enjoyable short concert of uniformly excellent music, some of which I was unfamiliar with, all performed with good taste and expansive bonhomie.
Bode has a pleasing light tenor voice that is surprisingly loud; I wonder if his attempts to rein it in for the Wigmore, or perhaps a slight cold, lent it its occasionally nasal edge and slight tendency to sing under the note at the top of his range. Where he really delivers is in his interpretation of and engagement with the text, which is intelligent, entertaining, highly communicative and perfectly poised for an audience of the small number we were. He and Levit are clearly well versed in each other's company and the ensemble between them was deftly handled and, well, entirely charming. Levit is a keyboard magician and passed off the often challenging accompaniment like he could do it all day (perhaps with the odd exceptions within the fearsome Der Feurreiter from the Mörike Lieder). By the end of the concert I was as enamoured with Levit as everyone else is, though I need to see him in solo rep with the piano lid fully up.
As I say, I can't really get enough of the Mörike Lieder, although I'm not sure the seemingly extremely good-natured Bode would be my first choice for this dark and melancholic music (I treasure a memory from many years ago of Ben Johnson at the Oxford Lieder Festival performing Feurreiter in an ankle-length coat with the collar up to his chin and his hands in his pockets, unmovingly and grimly tracking the piece's rising panic with agonizing intensity – electric stuff). I'm not sure either that Bode is a perfect fit for the twisted melodrama of the Korngold Eichendorff Lieder, though I still found the songs absolutely thrilling: this music is, shamefully, barely on the edge of my consciousness and I must investigate it further. The recital's highlight, to my mind, in terms of mood, occasion and apparent temperament, were the six songs of Mendelssohn's op.19a, performed by Bode and Levit with a captivating lightness of touch.
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