I asked Lucinda for permission to forward the note she wrote to me after
Quasthoff's DC recital last night (her first live experience of TQ, after
being subjected to five years of my relentless Quasthoffiana) -

   I found myself sitting in almost the same seat that I was given for
   the Fleming recital.  I remembered her emerald green satin dress,
   and I remembered the unbelievable beauty, the shiny liquidity of her
   voice.

   I wasn't sure what to expect last night.  I was afraid I'd be sleepy,
   since I'd been awake since 4:30 am.  But never fear.  With his first
   song (Schubert's "The Singer") Quasthoff had my rapt attention, and
   never let go after that.

   All the songs in the first half (except maybe "the singer," and that's
   a Maybe) had to do with encounters with the supernatural: Der Zwerg
   (The Gnome), and Schubert's Erlkonig ; Loewe's Der Noeck (no
   translation, but I'd bet), Lord Olaf, Tom the Rhymer, and Odin's Sea
   Ride.  Quasthoff's voice, his posture, everything about him, lived
   in the character that spoke (almost all the songs were folk tales).
   He was a fearful little boy in his father's arms, and he was the
   father.  He was the Queen of Elves, and he was Tom, and both as they
   rode off through the green woods, as birds sang and the sun shone,
   "and whenever she pulled on the reins the little bells rang brightly."
   An enchanted world, and I didn't want to leave it.

   The second half included Brahm's "Funf Lieder" and "Vier ernste
   Gesange." All of this, *all* was new to me, you know.  And Quasthoff
   did the same for these very different songs: mesmerize me.  He lived
   in every song, and therefore, so did I.  Every word of "Rise, Beloved
   Shade" still belongs to me, even though I couldn't actually recite
   it.  And "My Heart is Heavy," that too.  And then, and then, the
   bitter depth of the Ecclesiastes texts, and the final song, ending
   in those great words.  I couldn't believe it was the last.

   Quasthoff sat there, after some of the applause had died down, and
   repeated them, I was going to say in his own voice, but you know what
   I mean.  "That is true, the truest of true, " he said.  "The greatest
   of these is love." I just looked at that small figure, more distant
   than I would have preferred, and choked.  Perhaps we all did.

   He only gave us two encores, in spite of what constituted hysterical
   yelling for Washington: one a Schubert song I didn't catch the name
   of (it's about a little boy, like me, he said, with a smile) and the
   other "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." It was just wonderful, and someone
   in the crowd yelled "Thank you!"

   I looked down at the all-important program with the burning words of
   those songs, indelible now.  And I thought of Fleming in her green
   dress, and you know, I could not recall the name of anything she
   sang.  But Quasthoff, I will always remember.

   Lucinda Hughes/DC
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Janos Gereben/SF
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