‘Günther Groissböck & Malcolm Martineau’

There are singers who, during an evening of song, like to profess the lightness of love. There are singers who seek refuge in rêverie or who find solace in quiet melancholy. And then there is Günther Groissböck. In his latest lied programme, Nicht Wiedersehen!, the Austrian power bass fearlessly seeks out the dark side. Existential angst, the macabre cheerfulness of a fallen soldier, the pain of a premature farewell – these are mental states that inspired such late-Romantic grandmasters as Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and the prematurely deceased Hans Rott to create deeply moving lieder and ballads, and which come into their own in Groissböck’s dark timbre. For those who do not look away, beauty is also to be found in the abyss …