The promise of Greece warmed this wintry Wigmore recital — even though there wasn’t a Greek composer to be seen on the programme. Instead, the tenor Robin Tritschler and the pianist Jonathan Ware looked in from the outside, exploring Greece through the eyes of composers fascinated by its ancient past and modern present, its mythology, folk traditions and politics.
This is why we began with Schubert, not much of a traveller himself, but a composer swept into the Philhellenism of the romantic era thanks to Johann Mayrhofer, his close poetic collaborator. So rather than whisking us to a sunny island, the recital launched with a gloomy journey to Hades, the pace steady erring on slow, with Tritschler an intelligent and controlled, though sometimes constrained, guide.
