How to Follow the Lieder

Foolishly I walk into the backstage room Plushmusic has colonised for the duration of the Song Competition. ’Ah Lyndon’, chirps my editor, ‘an introduction to Lieder, please’. Greater men and women than me have spent their lives wrestling with this question, and now I have half an hour and thoughts of a remiss education. On the other hand – I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of the brilliant young singers who’ve been here today, and who’ve talked to me about why they’ve immersed themselves in one of the most challenging artistic disciplines there is.

After Lisa Rijmer came off stage she talked to us about the need to be able to imagine herself in different clothes as she sings each composer’s music.

Caroline MacPhie is distressingly talented – a fine voice coupled with fluency in three languages and an appetite for learning more – she says she looks for the raw emotion under the text.

Iain Burnside, one of the judges, talked to me about what he and his colleagues are looking for, and talked of chemistry – the need for any singer to cause a reaction in their audience - to make those people stop whatever they’re doing and just listen:

So this event is actually a fascinating introduction to lieder. Of course, the obvious way ‘in’ would be to roll up at Wigmore Hall weekly to hear the world’s greatest lieder singers in action. But is this not, in a way, even better: to see and hear these young singers, still learning their craft? For those of us learning to listen to lieder, who should we be seeking out? The “experts”, or the promising singers of tomorrow?

Lyndon Jones