A wonderful window into the trajectory and talent for future classical music – the Rising Stars series focuses on vocalists on the cusp of their careers, today’s having been nurtured and inspired by their professional mentor, James Baillieu.
Billed as a performance of Johannes Brahms’ enchanting love waltzes, the lengthier first half gave the singers the chance to individually shine. The works were fairly short, and were grouped into sets of two or three for each singer; these songs were often quite different, requiring a spontaneous and seamless change of style and mood. The Rising Stars immersed themselves equally into often vividly contrasting works.
Of particular note was Camella Seale, whose theatrical style and facial expressions paralleled her brilliant singing; there was entrancing emotion and dynamics invested throughout the delivery. Right at the end, we heard Evan McDonald who began his performance from the back of the Hall, before slowly moving to the stage. Even as he walked, his voice never faltered. He was reunited with the piano for the remaining two pieces – the last, ‘Love went A-Riding’ allowed McDonald to be released into another dimension: of uninhibited joy and unrestrained passion.
After the interval, the up-and-coming singers performed Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes, a set of heartfelt love songs. Baillieu spoke of what a joy it had been to work with the Rising Stars, and introduced the opus as a set of tender but playful, passionate but sometimes bittersweet pieces. There was some truth in the maxim about the whole maybe being greater than the sum of the parts, as all eight voices – and duetted piano accompaniment throughout – filled the Hall with an unparallelled sound.
Here, they brought together the beauty of the ballroom but in a contemporary context. Originally written for intimate salon performances, the waltzes then became more widely popular. And to our own time as well: split into eighteen sections, though with the entire opus lasting just 25 minutes, the waltzes suit the modern-day audience because of the brevity of the movements, along with the novelty and diversity of the themes.
The recital finished at 12.35pm.
Rising Stars, Tuesday 19th August, The Queen’s Hall