Florian Boesch or Franz Schubert?

foto: Lukas Beck / Wiener Konzerthaus

Der Leiermann, the last song of Winterreise, sometimes raises the question whether the protagonist commits suicide at the end of the cycle. It’s almost sure that the strange old musician personifies death, but the text doesn’t say so literally. In Die schöne Müllerin the words in the last five songs leave no room for doubt about the suicide. Yet Florian Boesch thinks otherwise, and his opinion became very clear during the concerts last Thursday and Friday

Florian Boesch, baritone & Malcolm Martineau, piano.
Heard: De Doelen, Rotterdam, 16 January and Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, January 17, 2014

Florian Boesch’s performance was part of the series Grote zangers (great singers). He made an impressive career, so why not call him a great singer. He began his vocal studies with his grandmother Kammersängerin Ruthilde Boesch and continued his studies at the Conservatory of Vienna (oratorio and song) with Robert Holl. He sang in 2012 at the Schubertiade. He received an award for his Papageno at the Bolshoi Theatre and performed in many major opera houses, sang many oratorios and gave regular song evenings.

Baritone

With Das Wandern (1) Boesch immediately introduced a very male miller boy to us. A baritone sounds anyway more masculine than a tenor, but Boesch went a step farther by singing in the bass transposition. At the latest from Am Feierabend (5) a lot of anger and energy could be heard in his interpretation and little lyricism, tenderness, or even irony. Fortunately songs like Morgengruss and Der Neugierige are written in such a way that Boesch had little choice than to sing those songs more lyrical.
Within the limits of the schöne Müllerin however - if one can speak of limitations – Boesch  potrayed a miller who wasn’t very sensitive or romantic. Ungeduld e.g. sounded more like a declaration of war than a declaration of love, while the text of this song displays lots of shyness and introvertism. (Breathing your declaration of love into chalices of flowers, or scratching those words in gravel can hardly be called extroverted and much less effective.) Vocally it was always nice and the terse rhythmic play of Martineau fit well with Boesch's interpretation.

Pause

Halfway (from Mein!, 11), however, the concert started to get a little boring to my taste. Mein! itself made ​​a great impression on the audience (which then in Amsterdam unfortunately went applaud about it), but that more for vocal than for other reasons. Pause ( 12) was very different, because the performers (both nights) stopped for a very long time after the fermata after und es mich durchschauert mich, so at that point the cycle really came to a standstill. I’ve never heard anybody dping that and it worked really well. The following songs fascinated me much less, because there was little personal in Boesch’s interpretation. From Trockne Blumen (18) onwards, his performance became exciting again, more about the reasons for that later.

The lyricism that plays such a big role in this cycle - certainly in a tenoral version - was rarely heard. Vocally this was also illustrated by the use of his registers. Apart from three very brief moments, Boesch didn’t use his high register at all. In terms of sound, it was very much of the same, because the midrange sounded very baritonal too. In that sense he equaled the character he chose to portray, because this character also avoided being vulnerable.

Tränenregen

Thus Boesch was actually in conflict with the many clues in the text and the music. All These indicate that the apprentice is a very insecure and vulnerable young man, a romantic protagonist par excellence.
In Tränenregen this becomes most clear. When the young man at night (!) is sitting at the brook next to the beautiful miller's daughter, it does not seem to occur to him to seduce her. He doesn’t kiss her, he doesn’t even grab her hand, but stares silently into the moonlit stream and finally begins to cry, overwhelmed by emotions.
This blushfull attitude of the miller doesn’t comply at all with Boesches interpretation. The reason why the girl prefers the hunter above the miller pupil, disappears in fact in his interpretation.

Convincing

Despite all that and in a way surprisingly enough, Boesch' macho performance was convincing. That was partly because the singer believed so strongly in his own opinion. (In the discussion with the audience after the concert Boesch also admitted that he found it an absurd idea to kill yourself for a girl.) In addition, it was vocally very convincing. Although the sound was often the same, it was  also rather beautiful.
The main reason the somewhat one-sided - and quirky - interpretation of Boesch didn’t get boring however, was Martineau. In the first place he played in a surprising way. Even more important however was the interaction between Martineau and Boesch. In the discussion with the audience after the performance in Amsterdam, Martineau said that he didn’t agree with Boesch regarding the suicide of the miller. While playing, he tried to show his own view to Boesch, though in Rotterdam, more than in Amsterdam.
Now I come to speak of the two different concerts: In De Doelen Boesch sang often much softer and sometimes almost like a recitative, often leaning back against the grand, sometimes shortening notes to one fifth or more. In Amsterdam Boesch stood straighter, he used much more breath support, probably also because the Amsterdam hall is larger. In Rotterdam Martineau brought vividness to the concert, immediately from his extreme fast pace of the introduction to Das Wandern, while in Amsterdam Boesch often accelerated Martineau’s pace.