BREMF – On the Wings of a Song – Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), Consone Quartet

I’m so glad I did my homework before this concert because I was able to follow the poetry more closely – and the two Schumanns and Mendelssohns, Clara & Robert and Fanny & Felix, were musical poets. Their Lieder are usually accompanied by the piano so anything different would be odd. Helen Charlston and Consone Quartet took us by some magic into a very sophisticated parlour in Berlin, Vienna or Bonn, an establishment able to engage a string quartet to realise the dynamic nuances that a piano cannot play, something Robert seems to have imagined.

I’m not familiar with the songs by Clara so to hear them with strings was an interesting experience. The sighs and emphatic legato, almost glissandi, from the violins were very expressive and would have been impossible on any piano. The strings were sparing in their use of vibrato. It was not the style of a modern, classically trained quartet but sounded voluptuously old-fashioned and a bit exotic.

Helen Charlston

In contrast, Helen Charlston, in a shimmering sequinned shift almost as golden as her voice, was very much of today – crystal clear diction, minimal but telling expressions and gestures, holding the audience with her gaze entirely. The quartet were with her all the way, as attentive as any pianist. She has posted a version of these songs with piano on YouTube. I do hope she will record this string version too.

The strings came to the fore with a spirited performance of Felix’s Four Pieces. They are very entertaining. They had fun with the flourishes in the variations and revelled in the exciting fugue at the end of the Capriccio.

Consone Quartet

I really expect to hear a piano with Robert Schumann’s bitter-sweet song cycle Frauenliebe und -leben, a work I have studied and love. Well, at first it did sound strange but by now my ears were enjoying the strings and the voice was definitely enhanced by the players’ subtle rendering of the score. Charleston managed to age her sound through the eight songs, getting richer and stronger as the years passed, and then hollow for the final, tragic end. The strings really embraced the bleakness of the postlude, which is just the start of the first song but now empty, without the voice. It was a very different version of this favourite work, and one I shall cherish.

The encore, Clara’s sublime Die gute Nacht, closed not only the evening but another magnificent and memorable BREMF.

Andrew Connal
St George’s Church,
26 October 2025

Rating:

Helen Charlston mezzo-soprano

Consone Quartet
Agata Daraškaite – violin
Magdalena Loth-Hill – violin
Elitsa Bogdanova – viola
George Ross – cello

Programme:
Clara Schumann – Sechs Lieder Op. 13
all songs arranged by Bill Thorp
♦ Ich stand in dunklen Träumen
♦ Sie liebten sich beide
♦ Liebeszaube
♦ Der Mond kommt still gegangen
♦ Ich hab’ in deinem Auge
♦ Die stille Lotosblume

Felix Mendelssohn – Four Pieces Op. 81

Mendelssohn – Auf Flügeln des Gesanges

Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel
♦ Die Mainacht
♦ Mayenlied

Mendelssohn – Die Liebende schreibt

Robert Schumann – Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42
encore Clara Schumann – Die gute Nacht