Soprano Barbara Bonney's mastery of the art of lieder has always been much acclaimed, her interpretative instincts matched by a natural, unforced personality and repertoire carefully chosen to offer new perspectives. This recital with pianist Malcolm Martineau had all these facets, so that Bonney fans could have their fix, even if acknowledging that the pure tone that has been her prime characteristic occasionally eluded her.

Bonney neatly sidestepped the Mozart anniversary by opening with a trio of songs by Wolfgang Amadeus's son Franz Xaver, already flagged up on her recent disc. Beyond a certain curiosity value, though, there was nothing to suggest that other singers should rush to embrace them. More rewardingly, the main part of Bonney's first half was devoted to Goethe heroines in settings by eight composers spanning most of the 19th century. After a somewhat tentative start in Klärchen's Freudvoll und Leidvoll from Beethoven's incidental music to Egmont and three Suleika songs by Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann, Bonney began to get into her stride in Liszt's stirring version of the Mignon song Kennst du das Land, and Tchaikovsky's Nur Wer die Sehnsucht Kennt, best known as None But the Lonely Heart. Both passion and vulnerability were touchingly conveyed.

Yet it was only as Gretchen in Verdi's Perduta Ho la Pace - an Italian translation of the most familiar of all Goethe's songs, Gretchen am Spinnrade, fittingly given as an encore here - that Bonney appeared to relax completely, and she performed a final Wolf setting with great warmth and conviction to crown the sequence. Martineau's pointing up of the piano's growing contribution to the psychological portrayals was deeply illuminating.

American songs from the 20th century made up the second half, with Charles Griffes' three songs of Op 11 suggesting a composer infinitely deserving of Bonney's advocacy, his fluent and expressive lyricism rather outshining Copland and Barber here.