Christopher Maltman's latest Wigmore Hall recital was the first of a string of concerts commemorating Gerald Finzi, 50 years after the composer's death. Several of his larger-scale works were performed at this year's Proms; however, he also left us a substantial body of song, and it is this aspect of his work that some of the Wigmore's favourite artists will be exploring over the coming weeks.
Few are more favoured here than Graham Johnson, Maltman's accompanist. Any recital involving Johnson is an equal partnership, a fact that was emphasised at the end of this concert by Johnson himself announcing two of the three encores. Throughout the programme there was an easy communication between singer and pianist. Maltman and Johnson have recorded Schumann together before, so it was no surprise that in his Kernerlieder, Op 35, they were very much in sympathy.
Gratifyingly, this polish extended to the rest of the programme: four songs by the French composer Reynaldo Hahn, and Finzi's settings of Thomas Hardy's Before and After Summer. Finzi was perhaps not so compact a songwriter as Schumann, but Before and After Summer is full of vivid music. The first song, Childhood Among the Ferns, has an almost American-sounding translucence, while the piano part in Amabel conjures up precisely the tight, mechanic steps of the poet's altered love, and the portrayal of leaves spiralling downwards in The Too Short Time is extraordinarily evocative.
Maltman is a very busy singer at the moment, but his baritone shows no sign of tiredness. In fact, it's growing ever more robust. The lower part of his range is developing a real heft, yet he can still float high notes securely. He put his superb breath control to good use for some tellingly expressive effects - the rounded crescendo and diminuendo on the final note of Schumann's Sehnsucht nach der Waldgegend, for example, and the unfettered climax of Stille Thränen - and negotiated with seeming ease the relentless octave leaps in Hahn's setting of F tes Galantes.
But it was in Finzi's ominous Channel Firing that he and Johnson were at their most dramatic. There is still room for Maltman's voice to develop, to grow in subtlety, and he can seem a little self-conscious on the platform. But this recital will only have confirmed his position as one of Britain's most promising singers.
