Toby Spence "Schwanengesang" - today at 1pm

[Nick Armstrong]

Caught this in the week, thought I'd flag today's repeat as it sounded exceptional to me

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041vg74

[Mary Chambers]

I heard him sing Der Doppelgänger on In Tune, and was utterly gripped. Thanks for the reminder.

[David-G]

Thanks for the reminder, which I saw just in time to catch the last 20 minutes. Wonderful. I will listen to the complete concert on the iplayer.

[Mary Chambers]

Qq

Very intense performance. I don't, to be honest, think that his voice has quite the beauty that it used to have before his illness - there's a little scrape there - but I don't much care. I'd rather listen to him, with his musicality and understanding, than many a smoothly perfect singer. I hope for his sake that the full beauty returns eventually.

I would question Sara Mohr-Pietsch's assertion that this so-called song cycle contains some 'light-hearted' songs. They all have tears somewhere.

[Lento]

The harmonic "switch" at the end of Taubenpost gets me every time! So good to hear him back to form.

[gurnemanz]

Very intense performance. I don't, to be honest, think that his voice has quite the beauty that it used to have before his illness - there's a little scrape there - but I don't much care. I'd rather listen to him, with his musicality and understanding, than many a smoothly perfect singer. I hope for his sake that the full beauty returns eventually.

I would question Sara Mohr-Pietsch's assertion that this so-called song cycle contains some 'light-hearted' songs. They all have tears somewhere.

I've just listened again and agree with your points. Some "little scrapes" were noticeable especially in the long notes of slow songs such as "In der Ferne". This was not enough to be off-putting and I really appreciated the interpretation. My wife who is German came in half way through and immediately remarked " Er is kein Deutscher, nicht wahr?" (He's not German, is he?). I actually found his German to to be perfectly OK.

I also agree about all having tears somewhere. The words "sehnen" and "Sehnsucht" figure prominently in the texts and tense longing, pain of separation, unease and frustration pervade the songs.