Lieder eines fahrender Gesellen - Mahler

Three Songs - Dupare

Cinco canciones negras - Xavier Montsalvatge

I was instantly captivated by the singing of Lynda Lee and the playing of Dearbhla Collins in Sunday's recital in the Hugh Lane Gallery. Not only were the performers perfectly attuned to each other, but they also seemed to share the composer's youthful pangs (Mahler was only 23 when he wrote his Songs of a Wayfarer).

The singer sang with a strength that would have suited the better-known orchestral accompaniment but she never sang too loud and never forced her voice and never indulged in unnecessary vibrato. The song-cycle, which marries the youthful innocence of the words to the mature sophistication of the music, could have been written with these two performers in mind.

Dupare's French romanticism is far from innocent; it has a very hothouse atmosphere. Voice and piano adapted to the seductively sultry melodies of Chanson triste, Soupir and Au pays ou se fait la guerre with a languorous ease. Lynda Lee sang those high notes that are provocatively allied to unaccented syllables with just the right amount of pressure.

Montsalvatge's Five Songs, inspired by Latin-American, or more specifically, West Indian music, are flavoured with Hispanic surrealism, and this new atmosphere was tellingly recreated with Caribbean influences. Although literal translations of all the songs in the recital were provided, it was quite difficult to follow them, especially in the Montsalvatge songs; the original texts would have been a help. Lynda Lee has a voice of enviable power and purity.

Dearbhla Collins at the piano was the equal of the singer; it would be hard to say which enhanced the other most.