Opening concert of the 2007/8 Wigmore Hall season
Notes on the encore by Christine:
‘A City Called Heaven’ negro spiritual I grew up in a family of
singers, many of whom sang gospel music. My brothers and I quite
often joined our mother in the church to sing gospel music and
spirituals. This music has always been an important part of my life,
so I try to include spirituals in my programs whenever I can. I find in
the spirituals that no matter what the obstacles are, there is a deep
underlying sense of hope and joy. This is what draws me to such
music and gives me such joy to sing.
‘Ich liebe dich’ Richard Strauss: This is one of the many Strauss
lieder that I have sung for years, and that Roger and I have
performed and recorded. This song also exudes such utter joy that
it's difficult not to just want to burst out in laughter at the end of it.
It has one of the most exuberant postludes of any of Strauss' songs,
and I love it!
‘Mira’ Bob Merrill: I started performing Mira about 20 years ago
when I did little recitals and concerts around St. Louis. This song
spoke to me right away, because it is about a girl who is missing her
hometown where everyone knows her name. I grew up in a town of
500 and now live in a town of about 3,500, so I truly know what it is
like to walk down the street and know most of the townspeople.
There is a comfort in that for me, and I miss it when I am travelling
around the world. I think I sang this song as an encore the very first
time that I sang at the Wigmore Hall. It became one of Bill Lyne's
favourites and he asked me to sing it at his farewell concert. So it
has become a standard for me at the Wigmore, and one that always
makes me think of home and all those folks there as well as my
friends here in London when I sing it!
“For all the power and musical intelligence she brings to Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder and Wolf's Mignon songs, the second half signals a complete change of mood in the Britten and John Carter's spiritual- based Cantata. This is singing of rare charm and versatility, at both ends of a vast emotional spectrum.” Sunday Telegraph, 22nd June 2008
“Already in town for jury duty on the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition, [Christine Brewer] gave on Saturday a recital of radiant passion and power … generous sound, long phrases effortlessly controlled, subtle gradations of tone … The music’s emotional volatility was admirably caught. Clamour capsized into sorrow; voice and piano kept questioning and shading each other. Vignoles’s subtle gifts proved vital here … In the four Britten-Auden cabaret songs Brewer was at her unbuttoned best. After cabaret came spirituals, packaged by the American John Carter into a baroque-tinged cantata. Vignoles’s elaborate fingerwork never interfered
with Brewer’s exultant glow.” The Times Concert Review
“Recorded at the opening concert of the current Wigmore Hall season, this is very much a recital of two halves. The first finds the American soprano’s glorious, soaring voice in Isolde mode: it is the ideal instrument for Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder, and Brewer is in rapturous form here, making as much of the words as she does of Wagner’s music. It is rare, and wonderful, to hear this kind of voice in Wolf’s dramatic setting of Mignon’s Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, but Brewer’s tone is perhaps too fruity in his other three songs for the waiflike heroine of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister. In the second half, she lets her hair down in Britten’s Cabaret songs, and sings the negro spirituals of John Carter’s Cantata with heartrending empathy and simplicity.” Sunday Times, 1st June 2008 ***
“American soprano Christine Brewer is blessed with both a huge and beautiful voice, and the intelligence to make good use of it. …a thoroughly enjoyable recital.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2008 ****
