Wayne Holt -- A Recital of Classical Song -- Peace Lutheran Church -- October 11 1997.

When Wayne Holt gave his first concert of classical songs last year, he had already caused something of a sensation as the local singing wunderkind of the first `Broadway in Bermuda'. Even so, the testing solo recital featuring a demanding classical repertoire must have been something of an ordeal.

This time around, after working closely with top New York professionals in two more `Broadway' concerts, he was far more assured and technically polished.

His programme consisted of two works, both of them song cycles. Robert Schumann, whose work reflected the liberalising effects of the Romantic Movement, echoed to an even greater extent than the more melodic Schubert, the fusion between music and poetry. His `Liederkreis Op. 39', consisting of 12 short songs, are set to the poems of the German Joseph von Eichendorff, whose passions, typically for the period, are often expressed through the medium of nature. Even the happiest of these songs are tinged, if not with menace, then with at least a hint of the melancholy that would eventually extinguish the composer's genius.

Holt's fine baritone voice is a powerhouse of sound, rich and effortless; his ability to capture the shift of mood and theme in each piece was impressive and, technically, his voice now moves more easily through the vocal register.

Following the lilting air of `The Silence' the most famous song, `Moonlight Night', was tenderly sung, bass notes held easily as they engaged in dialogue with the impressionistic harmonies of accompanist Susan Soehner at the piano.

Ralph Vaughan Williams, that most `English' of composers who was much influenced by the British Isles' rich heritage of folk music, turned to the Scotsman Robert Louis Stevenson for his most celebrated song cycle, Songs of Travel, written in 1904. Obviously more at ease in his own language, Holt's voice was at its impressive best as he launched into the familiar and stirring sounds of the opening song, `The Vagabond', the increased refinement and control evident in the more lyrical `Let Beauty Awake', the meditative `Infinite Shining Heavens', and the brightly powerful `I Have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope'.

For his encore, he gave a thrilling rendition of `I Got Plenty o' Nothin' from Gershwin's `Porgy and Bess'.

Wayne Holt's departure for the UK to pursue his vocal studies is a loss to Bermuda as, in his three-year stay, he has emerged as a major musical talent.

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