United States Various: Angel Blue (soprano), Lang Lang (piano). Carnegie Hall, New York, 8.3.2025. (RP)
Fauré – ‘Clair de lune’, ‘Mandoline’, ‘Fleur jetée’
Debussy – ‘Clair de lune’
Rachmaninoff – ‘Sing Not to Me, Beautiful Maiden’, ‘How Peaceful’, ‘Spring Waters’
R. Strauss – ‘Heimliche Aufforderung’, ‘Allerseelen’, ‘Morgen!’, ‘Befreit’, ‘Cäcilie’
Hoiby – ‘Lady of the Harbor’, ‘Winter Song’, ‘There Came a Wind Like a Bugle’
Arlen – ‘I Wonder What Became of Me’
Gershwin – ‘Our Love Is Here to Stay’
Weill – ‘Youkali’
Copland – ‘Story of Our Town’
Trad. – ‘In His Hands’ (arr. Stephen Hough), ‘Deep River’ (arr. H. T. Burleigh), ‘Ride on, King Jesus’ (arr. H. Johnson)
Was there any doubt that uniting soprano Angel Blue and pianist Lang Lang in concert at Carnegie Hall would be anything short of spectacular? Purists may quibble over details like Blue’s French diction or Lang Lang’s occasional quirky twists and turns as an accompanist. But honestly, how could one not get lost in Blue’s sumptuous voice or Lang Lang’s expressiveness, especially when he stilled the hall with Copland’s ‘Story of Our Town’?
The concert was part of Lang Lang’s two-year Carnegie Hall Perspectives series. Each season since 1999, Carnegie Hall has invited leading performers to showcase their talent and musical philosophy by curating a Perspectives series. This recital is among Lang Lang’s last, which includes an upcoming appearance with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Blue has acknowledged that Leontyne Price, who turned 98 in February, was one of her role models. Many of the songs that Blue programmed were from Price’s core recital repertoire. One of the legendary soprano’s earliest recordings featured songs by Fauré, and she regularly programmed Rachmaninoff and Richard Strauss in her recitals. Price likewise championed the works of American composer Lee Hoiby and spirituals. Blue and Lang performed them all.
The recital opened with Fauré songs, with Blue tripping lightly through ‘Mandoline’ and instilling ‘Fleur jetée’ with searing intensity. Lang Lang captured the songs’ quicksilver mood changes in a rainbow of colors. His playing in ‘Fleur jetée’ was brilliant and fiery, while in Debussy’s ‘Claire de lune’, one of the two works for solo piano that he performed, he painted both the mystery and beauty of moonlight in sound.
Composers envision a song as a unified whole, with the piano part equal to the vocal line, but not every composer is a piano virtuoso on a par with Rachmaninoff. Blue brought passion to the three songs by the Russian composer, especially ‘How Peaceful’, which moved her to tears. Lang Lang’s playing was equally emotional and stunning in its lyricism, particularly in the short prelude to ‘Sing Not to Me, Beautiful Maiden’ and the final measures of ‘Spring Waters’ which glistened with joy.
The piano parts in Strauss’s songs make equal demands on the pianist. Perhaps the most famous is ‘Morgen!’ with its extended prelude and postlude which Lang Lang played with unsurpassable lyricism and emotion. Blue pared down her voice to a silvery thread that conveyed the song’s subtle but intense sentiments. Singer and pianist captured the heartbreak in ‘Befreit’ and the ecstasy in ‘Cäcilie’. Blue’s ability to carry Strauss’s long, soaring phrases, especially in ‘Befreit’, was particularly impressive.
In the Hoiby songs, Blue demonstrated her gifts as a storyteller. Hoiby was a neo-Romantic in the vein of Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti, and he had a penchant for writing songs that showcased the voice. In ‘Lady in the Harbor’, Blue instilled the words of Emma Lazarus engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty with a fervent dignity, her voice ringing out triumphantly on the fine line, ‘I lift my voice beside the golden door’.
Sitting on a bar stool and using a hand mike, Blue offered a taste of her equally deft touch with popular songs in Harold Arlen’s ‘I Wonder What Became of Me’ and Gershwin’s ‘Our Love is Here to Stay’. Her singing was as natural and free as Lang Lang’s stylish accompaniments. Putting down the microphone, Blue combined bluesy sensitivity and world-weariness in Kurt Weill’s ‘Youkali’. When Blue sang the final verse as softly as possible, the audience was captivated with the beauty and expressiveness of her voice.
The audience was nothing if not enthusiastic, generally applauding between songs and often before Lang Lang had finished playing. That changed with ‘Story of Our Town’, Copland’s evocation of a long-vanished small-town America in which Lang Lang mesmerized the audience. You could have heard a pin drop as he sat motionless at the piano and the final notes floated through the hall.
Blue turned to spirituals to end the recital, beginning with Stephen Hough’s ‘In His Hands’, an arrangement of ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’ and ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’, which she sang on the Last Night of the Proms 2024. Her ebullience dimmed for a few minutes with a mournful ‘Deep River’ but bubbled over in ‘Ride On, King Jesus’, an irrepressible, joyous expression of victory.
The sole encore linked directly to work by Blue and Lang with young artists. Blue invited thirteen-year-old soprano Victory Brinker, who is no stranger to Carnegie Hall, to join her on the stage. At the age of nine, Brinker received the first-ever Group Golden Buzzer on America’s Got Talent and was awarded the Guinness World Record for being the World’s Youngest Opera Singer 2022. They sang ‘O mio babbino caro’ from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.
Rick Perdian