The Tucson Desert Song Festival kicked off its second weekend with arguably its most interesting song recital: the vocal guitar duo of tenor Rufus Müller and guitarist David Leisner.
The pair’s performance before a mostly full UA Holsclaw Hall Thursday night was a chance to see how well-suited a guitar is to sub in for the traditional piano accompaniment in an art song recital. The scale of the voice to the guitar made for a more intimate and interesting performance.
But here’s what struck me as the most compelling aspect of the matchup: You felt like you were getting two performances in one. In traditional art song recitals, the pianist becomes almost window-dressing for the vocalist. You hear them, but you don’t truly pay attention to them.
That was never a consideration here. Leisner sat on a bench center stage, the body of his guitar balancing on his right leg with a brace on his left leg steadying the instrument. Müller stood to Leisner’s side, establishing for the audience that they were equals on that stage.
When Leisner plucked the strings, his fingers dancing over the frets with balletic grace, he sucked you into another dimension. The man has some mad skills, but not the rock-star-going-on-a-solo-tangent type of skills. He plays with the intuition of a man who is one with his instrument, which was most evident when he played Mertz’s simply beautiful “Elegy” and the “Farewell” movement of Tredici’s virtuosic “Facts of Life” guitar concerto.
Müller was the spotlight throughout a trio of Schubert’s “Schwanengesang” song cycle. It was a quick introduction to his vocal range: sweetly soft on the higher register, warm and playful at the lower and thoroughly commanding of our attention at any range.
One of the highlights of Thursday’s concert came when the pair performed Leisner’s self-penned song cycle “West Wind,” which Leisner had never performed it in the West before Thursday night. As they were beginning “Wild needle,” the fourth song in the cycle, Leisner came in too early. Müller smiled and nodded as Leisner started again — and promptly repeated the mistake.
“I’m sorry,” he mouthed to Müller, who just kept smiling as the audience chuckled.
The pair ended the night with an encore, performing a song from Schubert’s beloved “Die schöne Müllerin” (The Beautiful Maid of the Mill).
The Tucson Desert Song Festival continues Friday night with Tucson Chamber Artists performing the chamber version of Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.”
