Winterreise . . . . . SchubertSchubert sang the Winterreise (Winter Journey) cycle to his friends before he died and they were taken aback by the dark mood of the songs. The problem facing the interpreters is to maintain the dark mood while presenting the fluctuations of feeling.
Padhraic O Cuinneagain made the short piano prelude and the following accompaniment a signpost to the bleakness that lies at the heart of the work. For the most part he allowed the singer to express the impulses of despair, of defiance, of regret, of reminiscence, of self-deception and of fatalism that interweave themselves throughout the 24 songs.
Conor Biggs eschewed gesture; his voice commanded the necessary range of drama, and his mastery of the German language enabled him to blend the spoken and melodic intonations and to give words an individual colour at appropriate moments. Occasionally a word was sung without vibrato, sounding as if spoken, and this gave an additional authenticity to his portrait of the forlorn and love-sick wanderer.
Once or twice he gave a slightly too stentorian rendition of the final line of a song, but this was the only miscalculation in a gripping recital which left Sunday's audience in the John Field Room NCH emotionally drained.