Many artistic directors will tell you that while string quartets give performances of varying quality to consistently full audiences, even some of the most celebrated song recitalists walk out to empty seats. In 2016, Bachtrack described song recitals as ‘the simplest and cheapest form of vocal concert to organise, but artistically the most exigent’.

This is a problem for those of us who both sing for our supper and love the repertoire. Yet, wrestling with the idea, I can see there’s much to unpack. What constitutes a song? Why are audiences accepting of some styles and not others? Why do many composers, whose instrumental music is core orchestral fare, find that their songs are relegated to the edge of ‘standard’ repertoire? Is it a language or performance issue? Whatever the genre, music speaks directly to hearts, minds and emotions, with or without words. By the time the chorus finally enters in Bach’s St John Passion crying out ‘Herr, Herr unser Herrscher’, the listener has already drunk deep from the emotional wellspring provided by Bach’s extraordinary introduction. Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words shows how one might imagine a song without a singer; while Miles Davis’s Love for Sale proves melodies hold their own without lyrics. But thankfully, the human voice is an instrument too, with an unparalleled capacity to speak to audiences. Of opera, academics Mateo and Minors remind us that the art form is a hybrid, with multiple modes of comprehension. Audiences access not only music, but sound world, orchestration, imagery, lighting, text, gesture and, of course, the voice itself.

Song recitals focus less on theatrics and more on collaboration between composer and poet. Yet, the connection between performers and audience should be no less strong. Songs are mini dramas, and performers are storytellers. It’s ironic that audiences are reticent to explore them, given that the presence of text should enhance comprehension, not prevent it.

But what are audiences getting from a song recital? Yes, it can be a performance of a substantial standalone work like Dichterliebe – not only a known quantity, but a profound one. Yet often, recitals are more like a suite of dim sum dishes than a three-course meal with structure. Do audiences know from the billing what journey they’re being taken on as they wander through Fauré, Quilter, Poulenc? They may be from the same era, but what’s the real emotional point?

It’s also reasonable for audiences to want to understand the words being sung – and since much is in languages other than English, this may be offputting. If sung in English, the text is often artistic poetry, tough to convey at the best of times, while translations are frequently clunky or outdated. Yet, with surtitles (as used at Aldeburgh Festival), integrated design (London Handel Festival), or fresh translations (Jeremy Sams), there are ways to aid understanding. Perhaps audiences just need reassurance that clarity is valued?

Do we, as musicians, revere lieder rather than embrace it? And does this reverence transmit unfavourably to audiences? The lieder artists of the 1950s and ’60s – Fischer-Dieskau chief among them – developed the recital as a genre with such intellectual gravitas that future generations were perhaps doomed to treat it with ‘high seriousness’. At the Guildhall School, lieder sat firmly on a pedestal. I remember a nervous performance of Schumann’s Widmung in a masterclass where the teacher opened not with ‘well done,’ but with ‘this is the problem when early music singers attempt to sing lieder.’ If singers are made to feel the oppressive weight of the genre, might audiences also?

Thankfully, song encompasses far more than German lieder, and the breadth of repertoire encourages us to move away from that sense of ‘hallowed turf ’. Kurt Weill considered his cabaret songs closer to Schubert than anything else, demanding they be sung with the same care. Cabaret and folk music have a textual immediacy which classical lieder sometimes lacks. In those genres, we expect to ‘get’ the words – and that should be no different in classical song. And indeed, some performers today deliver diction and expression that hits us between the eyes.

Because in the right hands, song recitals are gateways into the souls of composer, poet, and singer. Grieg’s Haugtussa gives us a vision of Nordic myth and identity. Shostakovich’s Blok Songs expose cultural tensions and oppression. Audiences hear not only a human voice, but humanity – and not just in one song, but across a carefully curated programme. ON