One of this year’s major cultural anniversaries has been the centenary of the death of Debussy, a composer who ranks alongside Schoenberg and Stravinsky as a herald of our modern sound-world. You could say that 20th-century music began in 1913 with Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. But you could also pre-date its arrival to Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune or his opera Pelléas et Mélisande, both from the 1890s. And as a rule-breaking way with the human voice drove Debussy’s development, his 100 or so songs made an appropriate theme for this year’s Oxford Lieder Festival – which is the most ambitious annual fixture of its kind in Britain, platforming conveyor belts of singers in recitals round the clock across two weeks.
The opening weekend was saturated with Debussy, with a study day that took in live performance – including a dramatised recital by the fiercely bright soprano Gillian Keith based on songs inspired by the composer’s first love (a much older, married woman – very French). For added authenticity, an evening concert brought two rising stars from France, Marie-Laure Garnier and Jean-Christophe Laniece (both good but outclassed by the even better pianist Anne Le Bozec). And the day finished with a late-nighter for which the Russian soprano Ilona Domnich paired Debussy with Tchaikovsky – accompanied by Sholto Kynoch, who directs the Oxford Lieder programme, and delivered with exquisite, glistening delicacy the more precious for its sense of fragile beauty.
I was captivated. And though captivating wasn’t quite the word for the more solid singing of a young contralto, Jessica Dandy, in still more Debussy the next day, I was impressed by her stability and poise. She stood her ground and sang out, claiming the space. And as a rare voice – because strong contraltos don’t fall from the sky these days – she struck me as an artist with potential.
The potential of Kings Place, the concert hall by King’s Cross station, has been more than realised in the decade since it opened. Maverick and functioning according to its own rules, unlike those of any other London hall, it has made a unique contribution to the capital’s musical life. And last week it celebrated its 10th birthday in characteristic style – with an extravagant party that summoned together a cross-section of the musicians who regularly play there, from The Sixteen (sounding as rich in the superb Kings Place acoustic as they would in any cathedral, but with added clarity) to the guitarist Sean Shibe, and the curious novelty of singer-songwriter Ayanna Witter-Johnson who accompanies herself on the cello. Standing up. I stood up myself to applaud her, she was so engaging: something I’m not often moved to do.
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