The news that Ian Bostridge was unwell was far less of a disappointment than it might have been. He had decided to sing despite having a cold and there was to be only one change: Schubert's An Schwager Kronos was swapped for something a little less wild. Otherwise this perfectly balanced programme - one half settings of Goethe by Schubert, the other of Eichendorff by Wolf - was intact. And in this repertoire, Bostridge with a cold is still more involving than many singers in perfect health.
The simple, understated delivery of Schubert's 1815 setting of An den Mond did make us wonder if he was having to hold back. But the breadth with which he started the second piece did much to dispel doubts; those powers of expression were still very much there when he needed them. Meeres Stille (Calm at Sea) was sung in a voice so quiet, so close to disappearing, that it seemed almost dangerous.
Admittedly, his singing was lacking just a little of his usual veneer and facility, and, unusually for Bostridge, the occasional note was not quite in tune. But pianist Julius Drake was on good form, tripping along in Ganymede without ruffling the music's surface, doubling the voice empathetically in the second An den Mond.
The songs of Hugo Wolf are hardly a secret, but their sheer, joyous invention can still take one by surprise. While songs by other composers might seem diminished when heard next to the mastery of Schubert, this concert highlighted the genius of both.
With the Wolf we were in more dramatic vein, which found Bostridge stretching his voice to its limits, and, although he portrayed the surly indignance effectively enough for a clutch of songs narrated by students, the exuberance of the final two numbers was perhaps a little constrained. But it hardly seemed to matter after we had heard songs as brilliantly descriptive as Das Ständchen (The Serenade), in which Drake's left hand strummed the mandolin accompaniment as his right picked out the would-be swain's halting song, Bostridge weaving the poet's commentary around it. And in Nachtzauber, the night magic of the title really did cast its spell.
