In 1945 American troops, entering the town of Garmisch, encountered an old man who announced himself as Richard Strauss. To their credit the American troops treated him with the consideration he deserved. His position under the Third Reich had been ambiguous: through never a Nazi, he had been forced into accommodations with the regime by the uncomfortable number of Jews in his family and social circle. He was eventually cleared in 1948, the year before his death.
The Four Last Songs is one of the glories of his so-called “Indian summer”, written individually, but performed as a unit posthumously by Strauss’s chosen singer Kirsten Flagstad in 1950. Written originally for orchestral accompaniment, they still form a powerful conclusion to any concert in the piano version, as performed by Miah Persson and Joseph Middleton at Leeds.
Few musical works deal so graphically with the onset of death and Persson’s intensity grew with each song, reaching a dramatic climax with In Abendrot where the mood darkens until the singer questions, “Is this perhaps death?”. Persson’s commitment to Eichendorff’s words gave way to broken phrases from piano as the lights steadily came down until all we could see was Middleton’s face.
This was a superb finale to the concert, but there was plenty more before that, including four earlier songs by Richard Strauss. The first half was devoted to Scandinavian composers, though oddly Edvard Grieg’s Six Songs were set to German texts. Essentially the theme is love among nature and Persson varied her delivery beautifully, lightening her tone for Lauf der Welt and pointing the tale of the nightingale delightfully.
Gosta Nystroem’s Sjal och landkap produced singing of renewed intensity before the final selection of songs before the interval, five songs by Sibelius, again showed the variety that Persson can introduce into her singing, aided by Middleton’s sympathetic accompaniment. Varen flyktar hastigt, for example, was an almost cheeky expression of the irresponsibility of youth, whereas Saf, saf, susa revealed itself as a brutal folk tale.
A fine recital, full of outstanding musicianship, really made its mark in the final piece, the slow descent of darkness in Im Abendrot a haunting memory.
Reviewed on 15th February 2023.
