Music@Menlo: Lovely, lilting Lieder

Everyone in theater knows this old saw: "Bad dress rehearsal, good opening night." Maybe the Music@Menlo folks should have worried when the last rehearsal for the Aug. 2 concert of German art songs was fantastic.

After that, things started to fall apart, pianist Wu Han told the audience Tuesday. First, soprano Erin Morley called, croaking that she'd lost her voice. A search was launched for a replacement. Canadian soprano Katherine Whyte knew the repertoire, and she got on a plane.

Then baritone Kelly Markgraf started having trouble with his voice.

"Life would be way too boring if we didn't have some drama in this festival," said Wu Han, who founded Music@Menlo with her husband, cellist David Finckel.

Markgraf opted not to sing his solo Robert Schumann Lieder. But he was able to join the group songs with Whyte, tenor Paul Appleby and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke; and pianists Wu Han and Gilbert Kalish; and the show went on.

And the show was sublime.

The "Songs of Love" program featured art songs by Schumann, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms and Alban Berg. There were playful waltzes, tender lullabies and love songs, and the atmospheric "Seven Early Songs" of Berg, more tonal than his later work.

The Berg songs were highlights. Whyte, performing with Kalish, was as confident and present as if she'd planned this concert for months, her voice shimmering. The song "Nacht (Night)" was especially gorgeous, with piano and voice conjuring up silvery, moonlit mystery.

Whyte also has the storytelling sensibility of a natural actress. Her open face offers an emotional subtext to every line of text. "How gently do the minutes pass!" became both a memory of sweet love and an expression of grief.

Appleby began the concert paired with Wu Han, performing three Lieder by Schubert. The lightness of his tone matched both Wu Han's rippling, precise touch and the airiness of "Liebesbotschaft (Love's Message)." In "Nachtstuck (Nocturne)," Appleby showed such a fine control of momentum and movement that I held my breath between phrases. His wide-eyed emotions were a bit overdone at times, particularly in the later Spanische Liebeslieder by Schumann, but mostly endearing.

I had trouble hearing Markgraf in these energetic Schumann songs and later in the sprightly Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes that concluded the concert, which could be forgiven due to his illness. These selections were nonetheless thoroughly charming.

I was a bit disappointed, though, in the first of the two Brahms songs performed by Cooke. I had seen her sing twice before and was taken by her poise and the luxuriousness of her tone. The first, "Gestillte Sehnsucht (Stilled Desire)," seemed hesitant, with Cooke's lower register sometimes overwhelmed by violist Paul Neubauer.

But everything warmed with "Geistliches Wiegenlied (Sacred Lullaby)." Cooke, who recently had a baby, seemed to find real peace in the text, her eyes dreamy on "You holy angels, silence the treetops! My child is sleeping." Neubauer's playing mingled delicately with Kalish's.

Cooke was in her element after that. Her Schumann duet with Whyte, "Cover me with flowers together," was a lush blend, and her solo "The mountains are high" a bright, coquettish treat. All throughout, her voice was supple -- and very strong. Impressed, my companion remarked after the concert, "I'd like to hear her sing Wagner."



Pictured: Top: From left, Katherine Whyte, Sasha Cooke, Kelly Markgraf and Paul Appleby performing Tuesday night at Music@Menlo. Wu Han and Gilbert Kalish are playing piano behind them. Photo by Tristan Cook. Above: Sasha Cooke singing with violist Paul Neubauer. Photo by Ashley Pinnell.