The Maltman Menagerie: Christopher Maltman and Malcolm Martineau at the Wigmore
Songs about animals by Poulenc, Schumann, Ravel, Reger, Chabrier, Wolf and Flanders & Swann
Christopher Maltman and Martin Martineau
Wigmore Hall
Stalls P15, complimentary under-35s ticket
31 May 2017
So this is more like what I expect from a Wigmore song recital, albeit with more than a soupçon of silliness over the usual dram. The silliness took me variously well and ill, but that aside, this was a well-constructed song set, united but full of variety, performed with imagination and consistency by two eminent recitalists.
Maltman confessed that the inspiration for an animal-themed recital was Ravel's highly characterized Les Histoires naturelles, which, looking the programme up and down, was not exactly a revelation. Animals is a neat idea but it is perhaps too neat, and to fulfil his brief Maltman was forced to explore territory less trammelled. Some of this I enjoyed, most of all the fleeting pleasures of Poulenc's Le Bestiaire. As you know, I almost always love a bit of Wolf and felt the same here, though the cherry-picked animal-specific pieces did feel unfairly crowbarred.
Reger's Schlichte Weisen were quite fun, I suppose, and I probably wouldn't flee the room if someone were to play them to me again. Not so the case with the three Chabrier songs. I know the story with Chabrier is that he is actually effortlessly elegant and charming, but sadly my experiences to date have only grown in me a great prejudice. Maybe next time I should make sure I see it performed by some native French-speakers.
French is not quite Maltman's strong suit; he's much more at home in German (to my ears, anyway). But the exact sounds of the language aside, Maltman throughout drew on a rich palette of vocal colours, intelligently and concisely deployed in close concert with Martineau. All told Maltman had selected quite a challenging programme that often seemed to sit right on his passaggio, the assured navigation of which was just further demonstration of his skill.
But we all got to relax a bit in the Flanders & Swann, which I suspect might have been the true raison d'etre for the recital. Maltman turns in a mean Michael Flanders impression, even down to the rhythm and pitch of the spoken interludes. Perhaps it would be nice to hear the songs interpreted a little more freely, but as it was these renditions hit my nostalgia buttons pretty hard, such that by the second encore of 'Mud, glorious mud' my eyes were brimming. Guess I'm an easy target: but on the other hand why shouldn't more English-speaking baritones embrace this delightful music?
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