AFTER two recent cancellations Michael Chance rewarded his audience's
patience last night with a recital that displayed his counter-tenor
voice in all its facets.
Softly floated lute songs by Thomas Campion launched the programme and
music more lusciously brilliant by Monteverdi continued it. The
contrast, in an auditorium of exemplary size, was striking. Seldom did
the singer have to force his tone. Often, indeed, he was able to reduce
it to a tiny yet wholly audible ribbon of sound, as expressive in the
quiet, confidential despondency of Dowland's In Darkness Let Me Dwell --
with Christopher Wilson's softly plashing lute accompaniment -- as in
the bright, pure declamation of Purcell's Music for a While.
Purcell, three centuries dead this year, was naturally the recital's
primary focus, his harmonies -- with Alastair Ross as harpsichordist --
providing a still, hypnotic support to Chance's exquisitely spun
melismas.
Amid the groups of English songs, the Italian ones were effectively
planted, Caccini's Amarilli mia bella unfurled with unfailing sweetness
and precision, and an aria from Handel's Rinaldo projected with
keen-edged, perfectly gauged, operatic fire.
Anyone who still believes that there is only one way of singing a
counter-tenor song would have found this recital a revelation. As the
first instalment of Song Lines -- a six-part survey of vocal music being
recorded by the BBC in Edinburgh and Glasgow -- it was the best of
aperitifs.
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