Lucy Crowe & Anna Tilbrook - Longing [Live] - The Times

The dark heart of the recital was Berg’s 1907 Seven Early Songs: passionate reveries with slippery harmonies. Crowe embraced the vivid imagery with abandon. “Drink soul! Drink solitude!” she implored in Nacht, while Tilbrook’s spidery legato warned of darker consequences. Voice and piano trod warily around each other in the Rilke setting, Traumgekrönt, while the cycle finished with Crowe virtually breathless — in a good way — after the ecstasies of Sommertage.