Hafez, Goethe and the West-Eastern Divan Recital Room Blackheath Halls 15th June 2012 Hafez was a fourteenth-century Persian poet who is still read and respected throughout the Farsi-speaking regions of Iran and Afghanistan. His collections of poems on the intoxications of love
and liquor are known by the title “Divan". To guide the audience of The Friends of Blackheath Halls Summer Concert on their journey from 14th century Persia to 19th century Europe Sanaz had enlisted the help of the distinguished music writer, broadcaster and lecturer, Richard Wigmore, whose illuminating introductions greatly enhanced each set of songs, holding our attention with his knowledge and wit. An enthusiastic audience filled the Recital Room and enjoyed a concert which would have graced the stage of any Austrian Schubertiade. To prove the point, we learnt that Richard Wigmore was off to one such gathering at Schwarzenberg the next day to give talks on Schubert songs. The concert began a selection of classic settings of Goethe by the youthful Schubert, shared between soprano and baritone, including a lovesick Gretchen at her spinning wheel and a spell-binding Erlkönig; next Stuart Jackson’s tender tenor voice brought us Hafez’s own words in 5 sparkling settings by the Polish composer Szymanowski. Hafez writes much about unhappy love and as one commentator put it these "songs shimmer with the hues of subtle, glimmering colours.” Poems from Goethe’s ‘Book of the Cupbearer’ directly inspired by Hafez, followed, sung with seductive allure by Ben Appl. Next, Jennifer France opened Goethe’s ‘Book of Suleika’ with a ravishing account of two of Schubert’s loveliest songs, Suleika I and II, Sanaz Sotoudeh at the keyboard making light of the fiendishly difficult piano parts. Her playing throughout was sensitive to the extraordinary range of emotions of these works, combining confidence and astute pianism. Hugo Wolf’s songs from the ‘Book of Suleika’ followed, in which Goethe’s alter ego Hatem exchanges passionate love notes with his beloved Suleika; the same collection provided the final two lieder, one each by Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Stuart joining Jennifer in a charming duet to round off the evening. Tom Butler
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