December 2- 8, 2004

artpicks

Bass Hit

opera Franz Schubert's song cycle Die Winterreise (The Winter Journey) can rock your foundations. With moments as beautifully bleak as anything on Lou Reed's Berlin, it's one of the earliest musical portraits of Romantic alienation. Schubert adapted the text from Wilhelm Müller's superbly titled 1824 Poems from the Posthumously Left Papers of a Traveling French Horn Player. Winterreise traces the devastating after-effects of a failed love. German bass Kurt Moll is indisputably one of the great classical singers of the 20th century—widely recorded and as renowned for the magisterial heights of priestly roles in Parsifal and The Magic Flute as for outrageous (if gorgeously voiced) comedy in Der Rosenkavalier. Born near Cologne, Moll's now 66, more than the combined ages of Schubert (31) and Müller (32) when they died. That he's continuing on in fine shape into the 21st century (at the Met alone, he's booked this year for major Mozart and Wagner roles) speaks to the excellence of his technique and musicianship: It's an awesomely low, solid, earth-mineral kind of sound he produces. Moll has recorded Winterreise for the Orfeo label with pianist Cord Garben years ago; in Philly the excellent Ken Noda accompanies him on his haunted journey. Admission also covers a 6:45 p.m. lecture about the cycle by the New York City Opera's very insightful Cori Ellison.

Die Winterreise with Kurt Moll, and Ken Noda, piano, Tue., Dec. 7, 8 p.m., $10-$24, Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., 215-569-8080, www.philadelphiachambermusic.org.

—David Shengold