Roderick Williams (East Linton)

Part of the Lammermuir Festival An afternoon with Roderick Williams will always be a voyage of discovery, particularly here with the celebrated baritone’s very personal choice of English songs inspired by Schubert’s Winter’s Journey. He explains it as ‘an exercise in association – through mood, through key or tempo, a simple reference in the text, a turn of phrase.’ Obvious links include Schubert’s Gute Nacht sharing a key and a trudging piano accompaniment with Vaughan Williams’s The Vagabond while his Linden Lea parallels Schubert’s Der Lindenbaum. But others may think of different companion songs: ‘one’s own playlist could become the new parlour game!’ \"Williams proved the ideal guide to this repertoire, his phrasing, dramatic physicality and illuminating way with the text bringing fresh insights to old favourites . . . He was aided and abetted throughout by Christopher Glynn’s poised and poetic piano playing, the two musicians’ synergy, nowhere more penetrating than in Britten’s account of Hardy’s listless lad on his solitary train journey. Chilling stuff.\"