In the time it has taken Mark Padmore to make his recital debut in San Francisco, he has grown into a lieder singer to be reckoned with. In his first of two collaborations with the brilliant Jonathan Biss, Padmore performs Beethoven’s song cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved) on a program that also includes clarinetist Carey Bell and violist Scott St. John joining Biss for Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen (Fairy tales), and Kurtág’s Homage à Schumann.
Two nights later, he and Biss give us Schumann’s indispensable and supremely beautiful Dichterliebe, along with Berg’s luxuriant Seven Early Songs and a set of Schubert songs to poems by Heinrich Heine that includes the powerhouses “Der Atlas” and “Der Doppelgänger.” What an evening!