Gerald Finley & Julius Drake

Just like you, we've been impatiently counting the days. At last, the great baritone Gerald Finley is coming to grace our Lieder series! Opera freaks among you will immediately recall his major successes: Count Almaviva in 'Le nozze di Figaro' at Covent Garden, or Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival and at the Met. And there's also his recent success as Hans Sachs at the Glyndebourne Festival - Finley at the top of his form. His great communicative power as an opera singer stands him in good stead in Lieder singing. Indeed, the fine miniature gives him the opportunity for an even more subtle display of his colourful voice. Finley and pianist Julius Drake have been a 'winning team' for quite a while now. Among the things they share is a feeling for drama and detail, as the first notes of this recital will make apparent. They put the fear of God into one in Schubert's spine-chilling ballads 'Der Zwerg' and 'Erlkönig'. And then they take the philosophical path in the sublime 'Grenzen der Menschheit' or in the grotesque 'Der Einsame'. In the second part of the recital, they reflect further on life in a selection from Mahler's 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn', a variegated microcosm of seemingly naive folk melodies and military marches that sound simultaneously joyful and bitter.