Christian Gerhaher, the most compelling and complete interpreter of German Lieder of our time, makes no secret of the fact that – unlike his devotion to, say, Schumann – his relationship with the songs of Brahms has never been comfortable.
In a memoir published in 2015, he explained a “certain antipathy” towards the composer: the singer demurs from being cast in the role of a mere conduit for melody “like a viola”, He says he sometimes feels “under attack” from the words, and he is also very mistrustful of Brahms’s motives in espousing the German folk song idiom.
And yet the result of all this questioning and searching is that when Gerhaher does sing Brahms songs, he constantly illuminates them in unexpected ways. So his recital with Gerold Huber in Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre (pictured below by Jason Warner) was edge-of the-seat engaging and truly unforgettable.
In the cases where Gerhaher really and unmistakably believes in a song, the results are quite extraordinary. There was no misconstruing his total conviction when he sang the Mörike setting “An eine Äolsharfe” as the only encore. In this song about the magic and mystery of artistic creation, we had exquisite shaping of every phrase, a wonderfully instinctive sense from both musicians for pacing and for delay, and clarity and a depth of meaning in every word. 
Gerold Huber clearly relishes every detail of Brahms’s piano writing. The astonishing clarity and delicacy that he found in the opening arpeggios of “Lerchengesang” brought an endearing and contented smile to his face. The slowness and deep darkness of “Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen” were deeply affecting. In a song like “Du sprichst, daß ich mich täuschte”, where the main protagonist is the pianist, Huber brought echoes of the very best of Brahmsian pianists to it, from Julius Katchen to Radu Lupu.
When it comes to Brahms’s better known songs about love, however, the pair approach them with an almost ironising detachment. It is a way which carries its own fascination. “Von Ewiger Liebe” normally carries with it an expectation that the performers will affirm the idea of the durability of love as ‘stronger than iron or steel’ through the means of an inexorable intensity and volume build. At the extreme of this approach would be the memorably barn-shaking performance by Christa Ludwig and Leonard Bernstein. Gerhaher and Huber choose to do the opposite. They stick with the principle that the way to express intensity of emotion and to draw an audience in is through gentleness. It came as a surprise, but it completely re-defines the song and is probably truer to Brahms’s intentions. I was also fascinated by the many ways in which Gerhaher can colour a word. The song “Wie bist du, meine Königin” leans into “wonnevoll” with its connotations of bliss and happiness... by repeating it no fewer than nine times. Gerhaher and Huber have the authority to question whether any emotion can be quite that consistently fulfilling every time. It was genius.
I have never heard Gerhaher in finer voice. This song recital, a coup for the Oxford International Song Festival in its 22nd year, was a thoughtful, completely nourishing and unforgettable evening of words and music at the highest level.
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