Baroque singers, it would seem, are bursting out all over. The Wigmore Hall has just witnessed two artists associated with 18th-century music straying from their natural territory: Czech Handelian Magdalena Kozena, who tackled 19th- and early 20th-century art songs, and German countertenor Andreas Scholl, who could be heard singing English, Scottish, Irish and American folk music.
Kozena, making her Wigmore debut, battled heroically with a bronchitic audience and power cuts that left her in semi-darkness. Her opening group of Brahms's Mädchen Lieder also found her battling with the German language, however. With her erotic voice, she projected an air of nymphet sexuality in Brahms, whose songs are too often rendered chastely. But her diction was slipshod, with inaudible consonants and occluded vowels.
Ravel's Histoires Naturelles, delivered with delicious poise, brought some improvement, but she didn't really get into her stride until she came to songs by Dvorak and Janacek, where we were finally able to appreciate a combination of vocal sensuality and punchy delivery. Perhaps singing in her native language helped. Kozena is already being treated as a star. She is actually only 28 and has some way to go before she reaches that status.
Scholl's folk songs, meanwhile, were peculiar. He has a fine command of English (less so of Scots), and there is little doubt as to the quality of his voice, which hovered with unearthly beauty in Annie Laurie and My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose. What killed it all, however, was his choice of arrangements and accompanists - lutenist Karl-Ernst Schroeder and Markus Märkl doubling on harpsichord and organ. The pagan nostalgia of The Salley Gardens turned churchy with an organ droning beneath it. The great English contralto Kathleen Ferrier used to hold an audience spellbound by singing Blow the Wind Southerly unaccompanied. Scholl shrouded it in swirling harpsichord arpeggios that sounded like a cross between rococo frippery and John Adams. With the impact of his material blunted throughout, the whole evening was a major disappointment.
· Andreas Scholl is at the Wigmore Hall, London W1 (020-7935 2141), tonight. Magdalena Kozena's recital broadcasts on Radio 3 on Sunday.
