Canberra International Music Festival / Schubert Lieder, Australian Haydn Ensemble. At Albert Hall, May 1. Reviewed by ANGELA GIBLIN.

This concert, part of the Canberra International Music Festival, took place in the Albert Hall, a beautiful venue in a great location overlooking Lake Burley Griffin. It has a very appealing acoustic. 

The performers were the Australian Haydn Ensemble; the program comprised Felix Mendelssohn’s Four Pieces for String Quartet Op.81, and eight lieder by Franz Schubert, including three from Winterreise, sung by baritone David Greco. 

The quartet movements were interspersed as individual items in the written program, and re-ordered for the performance. This unusual presentation was appreciated by the audience. The fine string players of the Haydn Ensemble played the Mendelssohn beautifully. 

Mendelssohn’s writing for strings was wonderful, as evidenced in this performance of Op. 81; how fabulously multi-gifted he was: as a child prodigy, he was in the same league as Mozart. As an adult he was a virtuoso pianist and organist, conductor, violinist and violist; also fluent in German, French, English, and he read Latin, and Greek. 

Mendelssohn was also central to the revival of the then almost-forgotten music of JS Bach, and of GF Handel, in Germany and elsewhere. 

The Schubert Lieder were arranged for string quartet by Vi King Lim. As these lieder were composed for piano accompaniment it was very daring for Lim to differ from Schubert’s style, but the ensemble pulled it off.

There are some connections; the concert program notes: “Though he didn’t arrange these pieces for string quartet, they reflect his spirit. His Strophe aus ‘Die Götter Griechenlands’ echoed in his String Quartet in A minor. Likewise, Der Tod und das Mädchen (1817) laid the foundation for his D minor Quartet of 1824.” 

David Greco commenced the lieder with Die Götter Griechenlands, whose longing text “Beautiful world, where are you…” has great resonance for our own troubling times as well as Schubert’s. 

Greco has a beautiful baritone voice, and excellent technique. He selected some very intense and dramatic Schubert songs, eg Der Jüngling und der Tod, Der Tod und das Mädchen, and Der Erlkönig, which plumb the depths of human feeling and suffering, and the performer has to go to those places.

Three selections from Winterreise concluded with Der Leiermann, where the resonances from the strings were especially effective. Greco made a powerful dramatic connection with the audience, particularly in Der Erlkönig, which concluded the program. 

A surprise addition to the program was the gloriously lyrical Ständchen, which provided a welcome counterpoint to the dark hues of the preceding lieder. 

The Albert Hall was packed and the applause of the large audience was rewarded with another pleasant surprise: a beautiful rendition of An die Musik as an encore.

All in all, this was a very special and rewarding concert. There can never be too much of this kind of music and music-making.