REVIEW: 5* Temple Song, Christoph Prégardien, Julia Kleiter and Julius Drake
Ruth Hansford, Planet Hugill
A classy evening from three seasoned communicators. We left the concert feeling like teenagers.
The magnificent Middle Temple Hall is a tricky space for a song recital. The singers can only see a third of the audience and so have to figure out where to look. The ceiling is high and there are lots of visual distractions on the walls. But once we have got used to that – with help from musicians who understand how to manage a space – we’re home and dry. At Temple Song on 21 March 2018, in the hands of Julia Kleiter, Christoph Prégardien and Julius Drake this standard celebrity recital turned into something wonderful, with songs and duets by Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn, setting predominantly Goethe and Heine. We were also given much food for thought (albeit in a dense, presbyopia-unfriendly font) thanks to Richard Stokes’ fascinating programme notes.