Wigmore Hall, London

5 January 2001

Lisa Milne (soprano)
Sarah Connolly (mezzo)
Julius Drake (piano)

Henry Purcell:
What can we poor females do?
No, resistance is but vain
Shepherd, leave decoying

Ivor Gurney:
I will go with my father
By a Bier-Side
Sleep
Desire in spring

Frederick Delius:
Summer landscape
Twilight Fancies
In the seraglio garden

Herbert Howells:
Blaweary
Lost love
A rondel of rest
Floor

Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser:
Land of heart’s desire
The crone’s creal
The cockle gatherer
Kishmuls galley

Interval

Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser:
The harper
Sleeps the noon in the deep blue sky
Heart o’fire love
Eriskay love lilt

Ralph Vaughan Williams:
Four last songs

Peter Warlock:
Sleep
Rest sweet nymphs
Jillian of Berry

Roger Quilter:
My Life’s Delight Op. 12 No. 2
Now sleeps the crimson petal Op. 3 No. 2

Edmund Rubbra:
In dark weather

Edward German:
Orpheus with his flute

Noël Coward:
World weary
20th-century blues
Alice is at it again
Nina from Argentina

What the critics say

Andrew Clements,guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 January 2001

rating: 3 stars

The soprano Lisa Milne and mezzo Sarah Connolly are two of the brightest young stars in the British opera firmament. Yet their joint recital at the Wigmore Hall on Friday, with pianist Julius Drake, was a disappointment – not because the singing of either of them was ever less than accomplished (indeed, it was often superb) but because the programme they had put together never really took off or showed their talents to best advantage.

It was designed as a homegrown affair: a trip through the English tradition from Purcell to Noel Coward, with an excursion to the Hebrides for a selection of folk songs, in Majorie Kennedy-Fraser’s arrangements with harp, played by Sioned Williams. There was nothing wrong with that plan in principle but, by concentrating on unfamiliar repertoire at the expense of favourites, they failed to avoid the danger of mediocrity – it was only too obvious why a number of these songs remain little known.

There could be no complaints about the three Purcell settings that began the programme, though: they were the only true duets of the evening, and were presented with a natural stylishness that perfectly pointed up the neat contrast between the two singers’ timbres: Milne’s open, affecting tone set in relief against Connolly’s endlessly fascinating, dark-hued sound, which she used to great effect in four of Ivor Gurney’s songs.

Gurney is an unjustly neglected composer. His version of John Masefield’s By The Bierside, which Connolly and Drake built to a terrifying climax, is a little masterpiece, and well worth a place in this selection. But most of what followed was less convincing.

Neither Milne’s three Delius songs, with their effortfully tortuous melodic lines over self-consciously chromatic accompaniments, nor Connolly’s group of Herbert Howells’s insipid lyrics left any lasting impression. And, though Milne sang her groups of Hebridean songs either side of the interval very characterfully, there were too many of them and all of Williams’s artistry could not disguise the commonplaces of the harp accompaniments.

So it continued. Vaughan Williams’s Four Last Songs (Connolly) only fitfully recapture the invention of his earlier vocal writing, and neither Peter Warlock nor Roger Quilter (Milne) were shown to best advantage by the selections here.

Connolly’s account of Vaughan Williams’s setting of Shakespeare’s Orpheus With His Lute lit up the sequence briefly, Rubbra’s In Dark Weather (Connolly again) darkened it, and by the time the final group of Coward songs was reached, something a little livelier was long overdue: both singers finally gave a glimpse of the well-honed theatrical instincts which had been put on hold until then.

Connolly also provided a sample of her own piano playing in World Weary, while Milne showed how versatile she could be in a beautifully timed version of Twentieth Century Blues, and the two singers dovetailed expertly in Nina From Argentina.

Too little indulgence too late, though.