Conductor, writer and administrator, Paul Kildea resigned from his post as Artistic Director of the Wigmore Hall in May this year amidst a flurry of controversy. Some, at the time, wondered whether his policies had been too radical for the Hall's regular audience. Kildea himself has always maintained his decision was motivated purely by the desire to concentrate on performance, and it was as a conductor that he returned to the Wigmore on Monday for a BBC Lunchtime concert, with mezzo Ann Murray, the Royal String Quartet and a group of hand picked instrumentalists for a programme focussing on chamber versions of late 19th and early 20th century song cycles.

Schoenberg's adaptation of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen was placed alongside a version of Berg's Seven Early Songs for similar forces by contemporary Dutch composer Reinbert de Leeuw. The juxtaposition didn't always show the latter off to its advantage. De Leeuw's pointillistic instrumentation - complete with slithery woodwind, a trickling piano, and an inappropriately churchy-sounding harmonium - fractures the mood of post-Romantic. Berg's songs don't really suit Murray either, requiring a greater opulence of tone than she can nowadays muster.

The Mahler was wonderful, though. Murray's remarkable way with words, combined with the occasional harshness in her voice, spoke volumes about the disillusioned loss of innocence that Mahler evokes. Kildea proves to be an exceptionally sensitive Mahlerian, perfectly attuned to the rhythmic fluctuations that convey emotional alienation, and beautifully judging the score's final pages, in which the insistent accompaniment forms at once a funeral march for the narrator's shattered hopes and a lullaby that offers infinite comfort. The Royal Quartet, meanwhile, performed a couple of items on their own: Schubert's Quartettsazt in C Minor was suitably angst-ridden, despite some suspect intonation, Webern's Langsamer Satz beautifully controlled in its restrained lyricism.