Stephen Hough songs, Wigmore Hall, London — ‘Burning intensity’
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Stephen Hough has a lot of hats. He enjoys wearing them (see the range of styles in his press photos) and collects them. But he also wears a lot of hats in the metaphorical sense, as pianist, poet, artist, writer on religion and author of a forthcoming novel.
Beyond that, he is also a composer, one who commands increasing respect. It was this hat that he was wearing at Wigmore Hall, where the Prince Consort ensemble presented a wide-ranging programme of his songs. All of them dated from the past 10 years and one song cycle, a Wigmore Hall commission, was receiving its premiere. How does he find the time?
By the end of the evening, and a succession of works of different hues, the range of styles that had been on show was bewildering. It would be easy to conclude that Hough has yet to find his own voice, except that within each group of songs the tone was distinctive and consistent. Where the poetry leads, the music follows.
In the new song cycle Dappled Things he turns to poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins and Oscar Wilde. We know from Hough’s writing how important his Catholic faith is to him, and this cycle ventures into Hopkins’s dark nights of the soul, where the poet tests his belief. In comparison to Hough’s other songs, these are the most difficult for the listener, but also the ones that sound as if they could not have turned out any other way. Partly because it stretched Jacques Imbrailo’s baritone to its limits, Dappled Things came across with a burning intensity. It was also beautifully sung.
The other songs were shared between the five singers of the Prince Consort. Jennifer Johnston brought deep tone to the Herbstlieder, where Rilke’s poetry is matched to the twilight romantic style of Berg or Zemlinsky. Tim Mead floated lyrical lines in Three Grave Songs. All five sang, with Alisdair Hogarth and Hough himself as the dazzling three-handed accompaniment, in the Other Love Songs, a multi-faceted designer collection where each one of the eight songs sports a style of its own. That adds up to quite a few more hats.
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