Search engine serendipity is a dangerous and beautiful thing. I wasn't looking for travel suggestions. It was just that I got to thinking one evening, a month or so ago, about Peter Coleman-Wright and Mahler's Rückert-Lieder. He sang them in the Netherlands earlier this year, a fact which did register with me at the time; but it wasn't until much more recently — under the combined influence of his magical performances in Peter Grimes, my own growing obsession with the songs themselves, and the fact of both Peter and Cheryl having chosen recordings of "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" for play during separate radio interviews — that I began to realise that this was something I wished quite desperately to hear. So I ventured into internetland with the faint hope that that April concert might have been preserved on record somehow, and promptly stumbled upon Ensemble Liaison's 2009 calendar, which listed a concert in which the group would, among other things, accompany Peter Coleman-Wright in a chamber arrangement of the Rückert-Lieder. In Melbourne.
My first, sensible thought was "No, I really mustn't." Ha. You'd think I'd know myself better than that by now, wouldn't you? And yet I managed to spend a good half hour convinced that I couldn't possibly, until finally I made that short, obvious and joyful leap to "Yes, I absolutely must", and that was that. Now I'm amazed I even hesitated for that long. If it had been any other repertoire, then perhaps I could have resisted. But I could think of no better hands in which to place the responsibility of my first live Rückert-Lieder, so I booked, and as a result, spent Thursday evening swooning in Federation Square.
For a start, the venue was fantastic, suitably intimate, and all glassed in so that you could look out to the river — and the sunset — behind the performers. It's quite something to see the backdrop change of its own accord like that: we had Mendelssohn by daylight, Schubert's "Notturno" by twilight, and by the time we reached "Um Mitternacht", night had obligingly fallen. The audience behaved beautifully, too — not a cough to be heard (I stifled my own at one point, quite traumatically) and barely any muttering. There was free wine to be had before, during intermission and afterwards, and a competition running to win even more of it. Clarinettist David Griffiths' informal introductions to the pieces were both charming and hilarious.
Forgive me as I gloss over the purely instrumental portions of the program. It isn't any sort of slight. They were lovely. The "Notturno" was quite mesmerising, and Griffiths's star turn in Brahms's second Clarinet Sonata was a joy to behold. The Mendelssohn Konzertstück which opened the program was quite entertaining, as was the story about dumplings which preceded it. These performances deserve more words, I know; but true to form, I'm saving all my words for the singer.
Both Ensemble Liaison's website and Ticketmaster promised a bracket of Liszt songs as well as the Mahler. This was already a mouthwatering prospect, but imagine my happiness when I picked up a program and discovered that Liszt was out and Richard Strauss was in. I'm sure my stars were in alignment — not one, but two (or one might even say three) musical obsessions in a single recital. Better still, the Strauss bracket began with "Cäcilie", a song I adore, and which Peter delivered with all the irresistible ardour I could have wished for. Bliss enough on its own, really, and yet the three songs which followed were somehow lovelier still. One needed neither printed translations nor any German vocabulary (even though I was equipped with both) to grasp the varied facets of love which these four songs depicted. Every subtlety was ingrained in that incandescent voice and written on his face. There were phrases in the middle two ("Breit, über mein Kopf" and "Schön sind, doch kalt") which seemed to flow silkily on and on, as if he never breathed at all — or was that me not breathing? Hard to believe this was the same language that, just a few months ago, he spat out so venomously as Beethoven's Don Pizarro; now those same Germanic syllables were all tenderness, all velvety warmth, and then, in "Nichts", all ringing jollity and good humour. My Strauss obsession and my soprano obsession go hand in hand, and understandably so, but if I needed proof that Straussian gorgeousness exists beyond the treble clef — this was it. (And then the encore — which nearly didn't happen, but we clapped loudly and made it happen — was "Zueignung", which I love even more than "Cäcilie" and in fact possibly more than any other Strauss song except "Allerseelen", "Morgen" and the Four Last. Sigh and double sigh.)
Brahms, interval and Schubert intervened, and then it was Mahler time. What can I say? To have songs to which I'm so attached in a sense introduced to me by a singer who also means a lot to me is an amazing experience — rather like having had my first and second live Four Last Songs sung by Yvonne Kenny and Cheryl Barker respectively. I could not have asked for a more heavenly introduction. Peter sang and I floated. He mingled radiant introspection with vivid expressivity, his interpretations imbued with a depth and vulnerability which were completely captivating. The soft sweetness of "Ich atmet' einen linden Duft", the exultation of "Liebst du um Schönheit", the electricity of "Um Mitternacht", all these were realised with sincerity and amber-veined lyricism. "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" is a song I've recently come to think of as quite simply the most beautiful song ever written, a conviction which Peter's searching and sublime rendition did nothing to shake. He gave these five extraordinary songs exactly the treatment they deserved: no trickery, no fuss — just open-hearted, sensitive and desperately beautiful singing whose glow stayed upon us even in the silences between.
The list of singers I've travelled specifically to hear is very short. The list of male singers I've travelled specifically to hear is even shorter — it's just Peter. My horizons, you see, are broadening. It's true I was slow on the uptake. I was brought up on sopranos and mezzos, and so I took my time coming around properly to male voices. But these days I think I'm as swayable by male voices as female ones; in fact, when it comes to Australian singers, I think my preferences are if anything a little bit skewed in favour of the baritones of the species. I might not yet be at the point of flying across the world in pursuit of Simon Keenlyside, but a trip to Melbourne to melt in the presence of Peter Coleman-Wright? That I can happily manage. And really, if anybody was going to blaze this particular trail, it had to be Peter. I may originally have been his fan mostly by association, but that's been changing for some time — and after his stunning turn as Balstrode, I'd have joined the club no matter who his wife was. He's a glorious artist, a total delight; and if you ask me, as somebody did, whether this recital was worth the trip, my answer is — a hundred times over.

