How blessed we are, to live near Oxford. Smaller than
London, Paris or New York, but nevertheless with so much going on.
This month the city hosts a three-week festival – all the
songs of Schubert. Over 650 of them.
It’s an amazing feat, the brainchild of pianist-impresario
Sholto Kynoch, who has organised (and performed in) his Oxford Lieder Festival
since its inception. Most of the events are at Holywell – not a ‘concert hall’,
but an intimate ‘music room’ with ideal acoustics. Opened in 1748, is it the
oldest public music venue in the world?
And the performers this year – a dazzling array of the
finest singers of German song, including Sir Thomas Allen, Wolfgang Holzmair,
Sarah Connolly, Angelika Kirschlager, Ian Bostridge, Robert Holl and so many more.
Plus the finest pianist-accompanists.
I caught up with it at lunchtime yesterday – a recital of
Schubert’s songs to poems by the brothers Schlegel. I was looking forward to
the soprano Kate Royal, who was wonderful, as expected, but the revelation was
the young Swiss baritone Manuel Walser (above), a pupil of Thomas Quasthoff. What
an artist!
Was this his debut in Britain? It seems so. Such a future he
has before him.
And I have tickets for several more concerts in the series.
Hurrah!
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