A double anniversary would be cause enough for celebration – 2024 marks Leeds Lieder’s 20th year, and a decade of pianist Joseph Middleton’s leadership – but the festival has other reasons to be cheerful: the reinstatement of its Arts Council England funding, abruptly withdrawn last year, and the consequent outpouring of generosity from its friends onstage and off, which Middleton’s introductory note credits squarely with keeping the organisation alive to fight another year.
This gala opening recital, a meaty all-Schubert programme of mainstays and rarities, continued in that vein of camaraderie. Bringing Middleton together with pianist Roger Vignoles and baritone Roderick Williams, both Leeds Lieder royalty, as well as soprano Nikola Hillebrand, who made her UK recital debut there in 2022, and the festival’s current cohort of Young Artists, this was truly collaborative music-making: right down to Middleton dutifully turning pages for his fellow accompanist.
Of the several partnerships in play, the easy rapport between Williams and Vignoles was especially rewarding, whether mirroring one another’s luminous messa di voce in Der Wanderer or navigating the wildly shifting declamations of Waldesnacht. Hillebrand and Middleton, meanwhile, were at their best in the composer’s ecstatic evocations of spring and rushing waters, making light work of florid vocal lines and relentless arpeggios. Hillebrand’s burbling, crystalline Auf dem Wasser zu singen was a particular delight.
Three of Schubert’s rarely heard part-songs bookended the evening, accompanied by Middleton and spiritedly delivered by singers and pianists of the festival’s 2024 Young Artists programme, while the second half offered another winning partnership, with a barnstorming Fantasie in F minor for four hands from Middleton and Vignoles.
The coming week will see new commissions, participatory events, and off-piste venues all rightly playing their part in broadening and enriching Leeds Lieder’s exploration of art song in all its forms. But a good old-fashioned Schubertiade such as this is a heartening reminder that the stalwarts still have their role to play in keeping the spirit of collaboration and musical friendship alive.