Review
Review – Lise Davidsen and James Baillieu at Bergen International Festival 2026
Together, Lise Davidsen and James Baillieu slow down time. Everyone holds their breath. Electrifying stuff.
There are some concerts where what’s heard raises questions that create challenges come the reporting it critically whilst avoiding being personal. Then there are others, like Lise Davidsen and James Baillieu’s Schubert recital at Bergen International Festival, that present the opposite writing challenge: how to capture why something worked as well as it did without descending into hyperbole.
The answer lies in the way in which Davidsen and Baillieu perform on stage. Davidsen signals her strategy in the way she moves onto stage. She sets the pace – slow, upper torso leaned back slightly. She moves slowly. The rhythm is set. We are not, nor should be, in any kind of hurry.
Baillieu’s craft is laid bare. This in part down to the elegant acoustic inside Grieghallen, this evening enhanced with a screen that halves the stage area. The piano’s sound doesn’t have far to go before it finds a surface to bounce off. All of the pianist’s technique – all of the intentional choices made – is discernible. There is care and attention applied to every single note. The whole is enhanced simply because the listener is able to pay closer attention to the detail.
Davidsen’s craft is different. There is still the attention to detail and the intention, but that’s in the background. In the foreground, is the consistent tone quality, the clarity of sound production. She invites you to lean in with every single note, stirring a feeling that is easy to point to but impossible to name. Immense love is poured into each moment, rendering everything and everyone motionless. The collective stillness confirms it — this is not a private response. Music as an act of togetherness.
The first half tracks a brooding complex path, with So last mich scheinen and Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt preparing the ground for a devastating Der Tod und das Mädchen. The brighter second half begins with Der Musensohn where a slight mismatch in tempo is quickly corrected, the programme taking a comparatively more complex path harmonically later in Auf dem See. All paths lead to Der blinde Knabe. Time is slowed. Everyone holds their breath. Poignant. Captivating. Crushing. The applause is earned and inevitable. Suddenly, this moment of intense connection is lost.