United Kingdom Various: SONG SOFA: Christoph Prégardien (tenor) with Katy Thomson (soprano, Oxford Song Young Artist 2022/23) and Jasmin Allpress (piano); PIANO RECITAL: Alexander Krichel; MASTERCOURSE: Paulina Tukiainen (coach and piano) with Natalka Pasicznyk (soprano), Bohdana Ravluik (piano) and Archie Inns (tenor), Alfred Fardell (piano); EVENING CONCERT: Christian Immler (bass-baritone) and Julius Drake (piano); Holywell Music Room and The New Place, Oxford, 22.10.2026. (CP)
Before this most successful Oxford International 2026 Song Festival drew to a close many enjoyed an imaginative and innovative day last day. The Mastercourse continued throughout the day; the Song Sofa, a recent innovation attracted much attention and must surely become a very regular fixture at future festivals, a simply outstanding piano recital preceded the very welcome return of Christian Immler to sing Schubert’s Schwanengesang.
Soprano, Katy Thomson hosted the 2026 Song Sofa discussion with the charming Christoph Prégardien, the most relaxed of interviewees who, in an engaging hour, traced his career from choirboy in 1967 to the start of his lieder career with the same pianist for 40 years, his work in opera until 2006 and the huge demands it makes, and, finally, his admiration of the work of Benjamin Britten for Peter Pears. Careful selection and assembly by Katy Thomson ensured this insightful hour allowed time for two songs from Prégardien accompanied by the talented Jasmin Allpress at the Steinway – Schubert’s cheerful lied Fischerweise from 1826 and the first four of seven songs in Schumann’s Dichterliebe, first published in 1844. The hour zipped by with time permitted for a few questions, one asking about managing a recording performance versus a live performance to which Prégardien insisted on the importance of ‘trying to imagine there is an audience at the recording’. With several Mastercourse participants in the audience this was sound advice.
Paulina Turkiainen’s sparkling coaching at The New Place proved to be a joyful afternoon with all four participants visibly improving their performances, notably Alfred Fardell the pianist accompanying tenor Archie Inns. Turkiainen is a very versatile musician who used her experience of working with Finnish baritone, Arttu Kataja and as a concert pianist too, to deliver a most effective guest coaching exercise during which Fardell was given very deliberate attention in technique for the opening bars of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin! The afternoon was an excellent demonstration of how valuable a super coach can be in developing technique and performance skills.
Back at the Holywell Music Room, Alexander Krichel amazed an early evening audience with some audacious playing. Concentrating on Franz Liszt, Krichel’s stamina is nothing short of miraculous as his exhilarating intensive playing of the Tarantella from Venezia e Napoli showed The composer’s Ballade No.2 in B minor made demands for sweeping arpeggios, songs by Robert Schumann and Schubert storms in the left hand. Wagner/Liszt’s Isoldes Liebestod was very different, exhibiting the lightest of touch need for the final chords as the music fades. His encore brought many a tear to the eye with the playing of Scene 1 of Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen Op.15 ‘Scenes from Childhood’. A truly remarkable concert by a young man still in his thirties with a huge future.
Bass-baritone Christian Immler’s return to the Holywell Music Room platform as a replacement for the indisposed bass Brindley Sherratt was a welcome reminder of Immler’s success last year at the corresponding festival and the playful fun and drama of the Mörike Lieder with Anne Le Bozac joining in the fun at the piano. This year the programme was very different. The fourteen songs of Schubert’s Schwanengesang set to music from verses by three young poets, Rellstab, Heine and Seidl. The selection and settings creating a coherent psychological landscape. Julius Drake who had been booked to accompany Sherratt served as a fine pianist throughout the exercise. How extremely fortunate to find Immler at short notice! Having said that it is no great surprise as Festival Artistic Director Sholto Kynoch and his team have the most remarkable network of international artists who are prepared to contribute to the annual October event, where on this last day the friendliest atmosphere permeated the day.
A most distinguished looking Christian Immler was thrilled to be back. The first seven songs on verses by Ludwig Rellstab, considered by some to be sombre, were not! Opening love songs and the challenges of love play to Immler’s strengths as a man of defiant character; he ended the first half with the most exciting Abschied in which he bids a cheery farewell to the town he feels he must leave. Nothing much sombre about that! Der Doppelgänger finds the singer looking at the house in which he once lived; to his surprise he recognises himself standing outside; a matter which Immler takes in his stride. His audience is so captured by his assured, at times cheerful performance, the encore was quickly upon them – the last part of the Mahler’s deeply moving Das Lied van der Erde. A brilliant conclusion to a wonderful day in Oxford.
Clive Peacock