When Eileen Bardin dispensed with glancing at the scores of the songs and turned her attention to communication with her audience the music in this John Field Room lunchtime recital came to life. Gretchen am Spinnrade (Schubert) was nicely sung, but lacked that final touch of passion, whereas Ging heute Morgen (Mahler), conceived as a message from singer to listener without the mediation of printed notes, made the proper impact. She seems more at home in the lighter type of song, but the tragic finale of that Mahler song was expressed with moving restraint. The accompaniments were played with sympathy and subtlety by Dearbhla Collins, whether by the above or Vivaldi, R. Strauss, Delibes, Poulenc, Hageman or Armstrong Gibbs. It was a pity that exigencies of time deprived us of songs by Chausson and Berlioz.
The middle of the recital was taken up by the guitarist Michael O'Toole, who played Torroba's Sonatine in a most attractive fashion, never pushing it too hard. The Elegie by Mertz is an ambitious work which made less of an impression than the Torroba; it might have sounded better on a piano.