Bryn Terfel/Britten Sinfonia review – deep, unaffected sincerity

Barbican, London
With works by Bach, Gerald Finzi and Ivor Novello – plus a warming Christmas carol – this concert confirmed music’s power to console in troubled times

Bryn Terfel’s recital with the Britten Sinfonia opened Live from the Barbican, a series of concerts, both livestreamed and with a live audience, that runs until mid-December. The programme examined music’s power to console and unite in times of crisis, both personal and collective, opening with Bach’s cantata Ich Habe Genug, calm in its acceptance of mortality, and closing with Ivor Novello’s patriotic exhortation to Keep the Home Fires Burning, composed shortly after the start of the first world war. In between came Gerald Finzi’s Shakespeare cycle Let Us Garlands Bring, another wartime work, dating from 1942, followed by more Ivor Novello, interwoven with Welsh folk songs.

We don’t automatically associate Terfel with Bach, though he sang Ich Habe Genug with the deep, unaffected sincerity that he brought to the programme as a whole. As you might expect, lines were beautifully shaped, words carefully pointed. His soft singing at “süssen Friede, stiller Ruh”, at the close of the second aria, was breathtaking, and the oboe obbligato that comforts and sustains sounded ravishing as played by Nicholas Daniel.