Franz Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin

Few singers working today can sell out Carnegie Hall for an hour-long solo recital. Yet that is precisely what bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff did last Saturday night. To be sure, there is a certain crude novelty in seeing the Thalidomide-impaired, diminutive, and armless Quasthoff perform. Those who were compelled by morbid fascination to attend the concert would have missed the point entirely. The sole work on the program was Franz Schubert's great song cycle Die Schöne Müllerin. Accompanying Quasthoff was the capable Justus Zeyen, with whom the performer recently recorded the work for the Deutsche Grammophon label.

The genesis of Schubert's vocal masterwork has a telling connection with the composer's biography. In 1823, the year he was diagnosed with the syphilis that would ultimately kill him, Schubert discovered the work of the poet Wilhelm Müller, whose deceptively simple and naive poems are a send-up of German romantic conventions. Müller's extreme irony in the face of death was no doubt what attracted the sickly Schubert to this work. The composer adapted the poems for his own purposes, a song cycle that tells of a young lad unhappily in love with a miller's daughter. He admires her from the distance, but it is the shrewd and sexually charged hunter who succeeds in seducing the girl. In the end, the youth drowns himself in a stream.

There are many ways for a singer to approach this lyrical, yet overly dramatic material. Those used to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's impassioned and muscular interpretation may have found Quasthoff's reading too soft and subtle-on the whole, a bit too slight. Quasthoff's lyrical baritone often embraces the listener in a delicate caress. None of his flourishes were at all rhetorical, nor did they ever encroach on melodrama. At his most spirited and soulful, there was always an introspective element that seemed to hold the dramatic potential of the performance in check. Zeyen was a careful and attentive accompanist throughout the evening, playing with delicacy and, at times, surprising independence.

All around, the subtle coloring Quasthoff brought to his performance made the evening gentle and calming. This was affirmed by his careful articulation of the German language. He brought honesty and clarity to the work, often making repeated phrases flutter away softly. "Der Neugierige" became a caressing lullaby, partially sung in a mock-whisper that, while impossibly soft, somehow wafted gently through the hall. The most dramatic Quasthoff grew was in "Ungeduld," in which he managed to bring across the theme without relying on vocal pyrotechnics. Even in the tragic songs, Quasthoff seemed to be enjoying himself. He left himself ample room for breathing, and his voice never sounded strained. In fact, the entire recital seemed so carefully plotted and calculated that one actually felt a want of spontaneity. At times, the performance seemed to stagnate, as when Quasthoff treated every word and every note like a newly discovered treasure to be savored, as in "Des Müllers Blumen." On the whole, his reserve and care held him in good stead. Even in tragic songs such as "Die liebe Farbe," he managed to convey the sense of mournfulness though understatement.