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Barbara Hannigan: Tiny Desk Concert

Eavesdrop on a beautiful recital of German songs from fin de siècle Vienna, when music was transitioning from the swells of romanticism to the uncharted waters of modernism.
Barbara Hannigan performs a Tiny Desk concert on Nov. 15, 2017 (Jennifer Kerrigan/NPR).

In these days of wireless earbuds, streams and podcasts, the notion of people gathering to hear a lone classical singer (with a pianist) perform densely structured art songs in a foreign tongue seems almost laughably quaint.

Yet the vocal recital, as a performance genre, is still alive. And one of the and her accompanist Reinbert de Leeuw.

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