Hugh Cutting and George Ireland

Queen’s Hall

Hugh Cutting countertenor, George Ireland piano

This compelling recital features two young performers making their EIF debut in a programme of works from the 17th to the 21st centuries, thought-provoking and musically inspiring, which holds the full Queens Hall rapt throughout. Based on the writings of Michael A Singer, the first half explores lives which are “tethered”, held back from fulfilment.  Ottone’s aria from Monteverdi’s ‘Poppea’ throws us straight into obsessive love. Hugh Cutting, singing without a score, communicates  frustration through naturalistic gestures – pointing at Poppea’s balcony, looking for the guards “off-stage” - and his clear and nuanced voice. Handel’s ‘Alexander’ is over-confident in his belief in his deity, but relishes the approach of battle – squaring his shoulders and hitching up his trousers  - and describes it in breath-taking coloratura, Ireland making a good fist of imitating a baroque orchestra behind.

Surtitles work well, cleverly matching the words sung, and providing up to four lines of text. Cutting’s story-telling technique in his two Lieder is exemplary, bringing warmth and genuine delight to Schubert’s ‘Ganymed’,  and following this with more challenging emotions in Wolf’s ‘Herr, was trägt?’  The first half ends with an excerpt from George Benjamin’s 2012 opera ‘Written on Skin’. ‘This - says the Angel’ is a chilling depiction of a woman’s suicide by falling from a building. Here the lower range of Cutting’s voice brings force to the aria’s end.

After the interval, ‘untethering’, the exploration of freedom which can surmount hindrances, finds focus initially in pastoral songs. Vaughan William’s setting of ‘Linden Lea’ has the hero, with carefree swagger, proclaim “I be free to go abroad or take again my homeward road.’ Hahn’s 1916 ‘A Chloris’ with its timeless Bach-like introduction, is a calm and very beautifully sung acceptance of true love. These songs are mostly reflective, and sometimes tentative, with fewer of the broader physical expressions by the singer, except in Howell’s ‘Come Sing and Dance’, an unashamed proclamation of faith as seen in the birth of Christ.

George Ireland is an accomplished collaborator throughout, unfazed by the many contrasting styles and providing links which enable the works to run without a break. He has four piano solos, some, like the Debussy ‘Des pas sur la neige’ providing a cool respite from the surrounding angst, though his final number Percy Grainger’s ‘Irish Tune’ is a surprisingly impassioned take on ‘Danny Boy’.

Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, a WWI chaplain, raised soldiers’ morale by distributing cigarettes, hence his nickname ‘Woodbine Willie’. His 1919 poems ‘Rough Rhymes’ provide the texts for Piers Connor Kennedy’s 2017 song-cycle, from which Hugh Cutting sings three excerpts, infused with a humane Christianity. War’s cruel separation of loved ones and the fragility of post-war expectations, described in plainly-worded rhymes are underpinned by dissonant chords and Glass-like repetitions.  Cutting delivers the final promise of Paradise almost in a whisper.

Massive applause! Then a brief and resounding encore in English “about freedom”.

Hugh Cutting is the soloist in Bernstein’s ‘Chichester Psalms’ in the Usher Hall on 21st August.