After a couple of Covid related postponements the American baritone Thomas Hampson finally got to have a concert at the Turku Music Festival. The main title of the concert was ”Songs of America”, but the first songs he sang were German, which first felt a bit funny. The explanation is, however, quite simple: the songs of the programme were under subtitles Freiheit – Freedom, and the Germans songs fitted this title very well.
In most classical concerts the soloists sing at least some
opera arias, but Hampson’s concert concentrated on songs alone and even those
were not the best-known ones.
Personally, I liked best the songs by American composers,
which were sung after the intermission. I did not know any of them before the
concert, but they were interesting; there were songs from different groups of
people in the United States of America, which gave the listener a wonderful
chance to learn more about music and the history of music in the country. The best
thing about the selection was that both the melodies and the lyrics were
extremely strong and would have worked superbly even as independent works. The
accompanist of Thomas Hampson at the piano was Vlad Iftinca and thanks to the
gorgeous melodies his role was perhaps even stronger than it is usually in a concert.
Thomas Hampson is
no longer a teenager, but his voice is still in great condition, so it was a
pleasure to listen to him sing. It was also nice, that he wanted to tell the
audience about his connection to these songs and the theme of the concert. So,
he actually talked a great deal during both parts of the concert. The
man could become a politician after he retires, that fluent he was.
The whole concert was memorable, but the deepest impression on
me made the song “Letter to Mrs. Bixby”, which is based on the letter written
by Abraham Lincoln to the woman, who lost five sons in the American Civil War. Both
the melody by Michael Daugherty and the lyrics were extremely beautiful and
touching.
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