It has taken a while, but the term ‘accompanist’ finally looks kaput. For many, it is not a moment too soon; after all, in innumerable lieder and chamber works pianists are playing the equivalent of a small concerto; being described as an ‘accompanist’ can add insult to wrist injury. A replacement, ‘collaborative pianist’, has not wholly settled in, if it’s necessary at all. ‘I’ve been asked the question so many times, “What do you call yourself?”,’ says Anna Tilbrook. ‘Well, I play the piano. So I’m a pianist.’

More changes are afoot in the sphere of the collaborative pianist than only the label. When working with singers, a devoted musician can often be programme planner, festival director, vocal coach, dramaturg, concert hustler, virtuoso and psychotherapist, all rolled into one handy person with 10 fingers. But the challenges they face have arguably never been so many or so thorny.

The first and biggest is the amount of opportunity, or the lack of it. ‘Fifty years ago, song recitals would have been the bread and butter of young musicians,’ says Sholto Kynoch, founder and artistic director of the Oxford International Song Festival (formerly the Oxford Lieder Festival), ‘and there was a recital circuit in music clubs and societies, as there is for string quartets now. But that has died a death and I don’t see any sign of it reviving. A regional music club with six concerts a year will hardly ever feature a song recital. Wigmore Hall has been a shining light, of course, and there are still names that will draw a big crowd there. But it’s been the slowest thing to recover, post pandemic.’

Joseph Middleton founded Leeds Lieder 20 years ago and has worked closely with some of today’s finest singers (Marco Borggreve)

Perhaps partly as a result, the degree of ingenuity behind song recital programmes has been rising incrementally. This might look like the influence of the playlist principle, which has had an impact on some solo piano programmes, but in song it goes back further and runs deeper. All the pianists I spoke to lauded Graham Johnson, founder of The Songmakers’ Almanac, for transforming the humble recital into a world filled with dramaturgical potential. Launched in 1976, that long-running series with multiple singers broke the mould by presenting concerts, largely of unusual music, based on linking concepts or dramatic themes rather than simply an assorted selection of unrelated repertoire.

‘I think promoters have changed their attitude to song pianists, because they give us more opportunities to do series or create constructive programmes,’ says Malcolm Martineau. ‘That is all thanks to Graham Johnson. My generation would never have been able to do anything that we do now if he had not been there first. The Songmakers’ Almanac changed the whole lieder world.’

Iain Burnside agrees: ‘The Songmakers’ Almanac was doing such imaginative programming, showing that you can listen to things in different ways and that you can programme with huge imagination, knowledge and insight. I learned an enormous amount at a certain stage of my career by hearing those concerts.’

While pianists are often the driving force in creating programmes, the process varies between different partnerships. James Baillieu, who works with Benjamin Appl and Lise Davidsen among many others, says that much depends on the character of the singers and their voices. ‘Ben and I have a programme called “Forbidden Fruits”, which is an eclectic mix of music and tracks the Adam and Eve story. That is useful to contextualise and to guide the audience through the evening, and it’s great fun to put together. With Lise, a lot of her audience is there to hear her voice, so I feel we should showcase that, rather than trying to put together a dramatic programme.’

There’s no doubt that surviving as a collaborative pianist in Britain today can require entrepreneurial ingenuity – thanks to which we now have several superb annual festivals of song. Exactly 20 years ago Joseph Middleton founded Leeds Lieder. Iain Burnside is artistic director of the Ludlow English Song Weekend, which was launched back in 2001. And Kynoch started the Oxford Lieder Festival (now the Oxford International Song Festival) between leaving university and starting postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music: ‘I’ve always had the approach where if you want a platform to perform, you pick a venue and put it on,’ he says. ‘Even at school, I’d just book a room, put some posters up and do a concert with friends. In the festival’s first year, we had a mission statement to try to establish a rejuvenation of interest in the art form and a new festival for the City of Oxford. It’s similar to what we would still say today, 23 years later, but that was how it started, just so that we could do songs together. It’s perfect because most songs were written for that kind of gathering.’

Visit any of these festivals and you will find a dizzying array of repertoire on offer: everything from favourites by Schubert and Brahms to little-known gems from the likes of Vaughan Williams and Gerald Finzi or the latest new song-cycles by composers such as Héloïse Werner, Judith Weir and Roxanna Panufnik.

The festivals are also helping to push the art into increasingly crucial new territories, as Joseph Middleton says: ‘In Leeds, I’ve always just basically put on the best gigs that I can possibly book or play. I think people respond to a quality product: something that is done with integrity, with a deep love, with real, intensive study. We try to present the festival in a way that makes clear that it’s for everybody and there are no boundaries. We try to make sure the tickets are very cheap, and we stream lots of concerts completely free. We do loads of work going into the community to make sure that we’re reaching individuals who probably haven’t even heard of us, to invite them into the concert hall, and to give them an experience in which they feel comfortable being there, but they also then learn something about themselves.’ The festival – like many other organisations – nearly fell victim to Arts Council England’s seemingly senseless cuts. But this story at least has a happy ending: after long and intensive discussions, they are now being funded again.

Tilbrook points to some striking recent changes in concert programming. ‘I certainly think in terms of diversification, making sure that we’ve included female and diverse composers. Funding for festivals and concert halls is currently very much dependent on ensuring that there’s a broad range, and that without a doubt is a new thing. In the last 10 years, the increase in the amount of female and diverse composers being programmed has hugely increased. In terms of researching and finding these works, I’ve recently put together a big series called “Mozart and Modern Women”, for which I’ve been exploring the songs of Thea Musgrave, Judith Weir, Errollyn Wallen, Dorothy Howell and Doreen Carwithen, among others. I’ve done projects with Kitty Whately, exploring the wealth of material that is locked away in libraries and that we don’t know about, going back to composers like Louise Farrenc.’ Tilbrook is also busy with a major project concerning Rebecca Clarke, whose songs are increasingly recognised as being among the finest of their day.

To Middleton, song is the perfect art form for our own times, whether in concert or on record. ‘Even though we’re always told that song is a hard sell, I think it’s perfect for what people want now in that it can really connect us to our inner selves. These texts are about things that literally all of us have within us the whole time. They tend to be quite short, too, so there’s the possibility for mixing the repertoire.’

Middleton continues: ‘With Carolyn Sampson, we’ve tried to programme our recordings to make complete sense for those who want to start at the beginning and listen to the whole album. That’s how we hope people “consume” it, because we spent so much love and care finding themes that work well and keys that sound good next to each other. But we’re also aware that individual songs might end up on a particular playlist. That can be a great way for somebody to stumble across something they don’t know for the first time. Hopefully at that point they might click through to the whole album.’

If the role of the pianist has been evolving, so has the style of singing and of concert presentation. ‘It’s always been the case that some audiences are scared of songs in foreign languages, or they don’t think they like singers,’ Martineau says. ‘Therefore you have to make it as accessible as possible without cheapening it.’ For a generation or two, he suggests, singers have been presenting songs in a more natural way, ‘as if you were sitting around a dinner table and somebody was telling you a story. The days of the great singers who were almost like icons I think has gone from the lieder world, though not necessarily in opera. And to me, that’s a good thing. It’s become more accessible and more natural.’

Who becomes a ‘collaborative pianist’ and why? First, it definitely requires a particular type of temperament, one that does not prefer sitting alone with a piano in a practice room at all hours of day or night. ‘From when I was about 12, I loved playing for my friends, accompanying them in school concerts and ABRSM exams and accompanying the school choir,’ Tilbrook says. ‘I’ve always loved making music with other people and creating that spontaneity that you get in the moment: you never know exactly what’s going to happen, and that sort of frisson has always been an absolute passion.’

For Iain Burnside, who has a multifaceted career ranging from performing to broadcasting to writing musical plays, it all began by accident. ‘Peter Pears heard me in a charity concert in Aldeburgh and asked if I would be interested in playing for his masterclasses there, to which I said that I would. He said, “Do you know the Britten songs?” I was completely broke and I said, “Oh, yes, they’re my favourites”. I couldn’t have named one Britten song at that point! But I went out, bought some and learned them, and had a lovely time with Peter, who then invited me for other classes. It was a wonderful way of learning repertoire and meeting lots of good singers. Also, I’ve always been interested in language and poetry, so when the opportunity came up, I responded to that and I just loved it.’

A passion for text, he points out, is essential. So is a passion for the voice and an understanding of how it works. Martineau says: ‘I think you have to be in love with the singing animal to be able to do what we do. You have be able to understand all the vagaries that go with it, and the bravery it involves. I was trained also as a singer – I never sang professionally, but I still have lessons and I still love singing. I’m fascinated by the mixture of technique and instinct that it involves.’

‘You have to really understand someone,’ says Baillieu. ‘You have to be diplomatic and you have to be sensitive not only to music but to people’s characters. It’s about knowing someone’s musicality, knowing when to encourage and when to challenge them. I always say to students that I feel our job is to empower our partners.’

Any other advice to young pianists considering this direction? ‘Become a conductor instead,’ Burnside says darkly, and I fear he is only half joking. But there is optimism for the future too. As Baillieu puts it, ‘There’s no app or anything else that can better the Steinway and the vocal cords. A song recital is devoid of technology: it’s human storytelling at its absolute peak, and audiences share that without requiring a connection to the digital world. I think the need for sharing and storytelling between humans will always be there. I grew up in South Africa, where there’s a different song culture, and it’s all about sharing, about people singing and connecting. That’s why I have confidence that that will never disappear.’