He composes; he conducts; he’s a piano accompanist; he teaches. Thirty-year-old Ryan Wigglesworth’s talents sprout in so many directions that I half expected him to stand by the doors tearing tickets as well. His new song cycle Augenlieder, the central item in this refreshing concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Claire Booth, is his third piece in two years to receive the Beeb’s patronage, and it glittered with skill.
Like another new British star, Luke Bedford, Wigglesworth writes music stamped with iridescent hues, instrumental finesse, shapely ideas and a lyrical impulse that stays within reach even when textures turn prickly. The various moods in this cycle’s four poems are all imaginatively reflected. Robert Browning brings forth urgent, variegated colours; the painter Egon Schiele inspires an expressionist vocal line and muffled violins. Hot-house clamour and virtuosity mirror Rimbaud’s dense magic; while delicate judderings usher in the John Berryman sonnet, Keep Your Eyes Open, the poem that started Wigglesworth thinking about a cycle of “eye songs” about sight and the look.
Sometimes an extra hike in the decibels would have helped Booth’s radiant soprano. But no sound balance kink could ever cloud Wigglesworth’s bright ear for glinting textures, his flair for taut motivic interplay, or his conjuror’s ability to cast a spell. This is a strong new work.
As for his conducting skills, we could measure that best with Stravinsky’s Symphony in C. His sprightly beat locked every shifting rhythm into place, while never stifling the music’s fun. A similar punch and sharp focus marked most of Beethoven’s second Leonore overture and all of his overture Namensfeier, a jolly rarity tossed off without score or baton.