If you stop thinking about it, Swan Song is a rather ridiculous thing. Schubert’s last song cycle was, as is well known, compiled by his publishers only after his death, and so it is hardly a cycle. Therefore, in contrast to The beautiful miller And Winter journeythere is no story and, what’s worse, the mood swings between songs are so extreme that they can become absurd.
I thought about this several times as I watched Ian Bostridge sing it during that EIF concert at the Queen’s Hall, because his identification with the songs and their meaning seemed so complete that he could draw the audience into the self-critical depths of a song like ‘The Double’, just before spinning merrily on a pinhead in a cheery ditty like ‘The Pigeon Post’. But this only worked because Bostridge was so adept at penetrating the little universe of each song. Every consonant was important, every musical phrase carefully considered to convey meaning and enrich the listener’s understanding, whether in the joyous love song of “The Fisher Girl” or the gothic horror of “The City”.
What was surprising was how well the songs of youthful love and yearning suited Bostridge’s voice. Today he is more associated with characters of age and experience, even cynicism, but he showed such an uncanny ability to get into the spirit of Schubert’s love songs that you never doubted it for a second. It was still the songs of searching anguish that suited him best, though, be it the seething mess of Atlas, whose torment seemed perfectly attuned to Bostridge’s high register, or the dark foreboding of Kriegers Ahnung, not to mention the darkness of Der Doppelgänger, much of which was barely above a whisper.
Steven Osborne (Picture above by Ben Ealovega) proved to be a perfect partner on the keyboard, conveying as much subtext with his fingers as Bostridge did with his voice. The gentle waves of “Liebesbotschaft” became the fateful strokes of “Die Stadt,” while the piano could leap for joy in “Frühlingssehnsucht” and hop along with the postal vehicle in “Die Taubenpost.” “Ständchen” showed both at their best, a beautiful combination of the gently cushioning piano with Bostridge’s sweeping vocal line; a delight.
I am not sure if they decided to spread the songs out over the break though. The Rellstab shots came before the break and after the break they added four more songs before continuing with Swan SongHeine songs, and that meant that the seething turmoil of the “Atlas” was perfect for the shock therapy of re-entry. Swan Song is to be a unit at all, then surely it’s best to experience it all at once. But that was about the only complaint about a morning of songs that were as intense and probing as you’re likely to find.
