Music Britten Songs Wigmore Hall, London

'A marvellous partnership of equals, in which Joan Rodgers's interpreti ve subtleties are perfectly matched at the keyboard'

A notable Aldeburgh Festival programme from a quarter of a century ago was touchingly recreated in the first of two recitals given on Tuesday as part of the Wigmore Hall's festival of The Britten Songs. That original programme occasioned the premiere of Britten's Canticle IV, a setting of TS Eliot's "Journey of the Magi". It is a work of the utmost concentration whose opening proposition is extended and developed with a spare ingenuity that uncannily matches the poem's terse vernacular. If the austere musical narrative lacks the persuasive warmth of, say, Canticle II: "Abraham and Isaac", which also featured in the programme, there is a sharpness of focus that compels attention throughout, suggesting the journey's trials in the piano's dogged figuration and the Magi's individual and shared feelings in the vocal texturing.

As at the first performance, the canticle was allowed to flow without a break into Schutz's Little Spiritual Konzert: "Die Seele Christi heilige mich", written for the same forces and, true to Britten's original intention, providing something of a blessing upon the Magi. On this occasion, Michael Chance, Adrian Thompson and Richard Jackson (the last-minute substitute for the indisposed Paul Robinson) wove the interlacing vocal lines into a perfect euphony, and Julius Drake provided poised keyboard support.

The second recital of the evening proved a triumph for soprano Joan Rodgers and her pianist Malcolm Martineau. This is a marvellous partnership of equals, in which Rodgers's interpretive subtleties and moving intensity of communication are perfectly matched at the keyboard. Hers is a style totally unsullied by recitalist mannerisms, and in a notably wide-ranging programme, she established the emotional world of each item by vocal means and only the most discreet of histrionic gestures. The Russian language, of which Rodgers is a proven mistress, dominated the programme, and we heard Britten's Pushkin cycle The Poet's Echo, as well as songs by Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Shostakovich. The Britten cycle can seem oddly impenetrable, especially when compared with earlier, more flamboyant achievements. There are moments of high emotional resonance, as in the nightingale's love song to the rose, and the insomniac tick-tocking of the final song, but other numbers seem to be withholding some emotional secret that is hard to fathom. Rodgers nevertheless sang with fine style and poise, and entered Britten's detached world with total conviction.

In the more direct and uninhibited emotionalism of Tchaikovsky she was no less convincing, responding infectiously to the merriment of "The Cuckoo", and investing the dark melancholy of songs like "At the Ball" with a moving reality. It is odd that these wonderful songs have had to fight for a place in most recitalists' repertoires, and the same could be said of Mussorgsky's enchanting cycle The Nursery, to which Rodgers brought a wondrous innocence and a humour unspoilt by coyness. Martineau's sparkling characterisation of the piano's audacities set a seal on this splendid interpretation. Finally, we heard the extremely taxing "Parodies" of Shostakovich, and if Rodgers seemed now to be tiring, she flung her all into their savage humour - altogether an evening for both artists to recall with satisfaction.