Last Thursday I was back at Herbst Theater for tenor Ilker Arcayürek's all-Schubert recital for San Francisco Performances, with pianist Simon Lepper accompanying him. The repertory was similar to his recent recording The Path of Life, & as explained by the singer, the songs were chosen to illustrate the arc of a life: from Love to Longing (I appreciate that that is the order there) to The Quest for Inner Peace to Resignation to, as a final touch, Redemption. In the Before Time I heard a number of recitals by women that traced the arc of a woman's life & I wanted a man to do something similar, & that was the tenor's plan here.
Arcayürek did an excellent job darkening his voice as the arc progressed, starting with the lively initial numbers, several of which centered around fishing, for some reason (I suppose it is a bucolic & sporty activity; the songs certainly sounded youthful & optimistic), then moving on to the more spiritually searching numbers as well as the emotionally wrenching discovery that one is not loved. There was an intermission, but I wish there hadn't been, as it would have been wonderful to experience the emotional journey straight through. Redemption was a single song, sort of an afterlife lagniappe, Des Fischers Liebesglück, which neatly ties back to the theme of fishing, as well as love & transcendence; the song leaves us "up above / on another shore".
The first song of The Quest for Inner Peace, Die Sterne (The Stars), was particularly touching in its serenity. Of course someone in the audience had to intrude on the moment by applauding (even though the program clearly asked us to hold our applause until the end) & whoever it was didn't even have the respect or taste to wait until the last notes of the song had died away. The one encore, Nacht und Träume, was another inward & contemplative number; as Arcayürek said to the audience while introducing it, the end of The Path of Life is . . . the end (meaning, of course, death) so he wanted to leave us on a more uplifting note.
A very satisfying recital! It was interesting to note that for the second performance in a row (I was at Herbst a week earlier for Jonathan Biss's Schubert concert), a lot of the intermission talk I overheard concerned the SF Symphony's failure to sign Esa-Pekka Salonen for another term. It was understandable the first time, as the news had broken just a day or two before, so it was interesting that it continued into another week. It is a mistake on the Symphony's part that is going to keep on rippling outward for quite some time, I fear.
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