I don’t pay as much attention to the free concert series at Metropolitan United as I should but yesterday I made it there to hear tenor Alexander Cappellazzo and pianist Narmina Afandiyeva in a programme of 20th and 21st century song.

It began with two Britten settings of Robert Burns; “Afton Water” and “Winter”.  These were originally written for harp and that doesn’t just affect the piano part.  The vocal line sounds like it was written for someone accompanying themselves on the harp.  Caconofix perhaps?  Alexander is a much better singer than the Gaul but these settings still felt constrained somehow.  The latter had the Archie Fisher version playing in my head in parallel.

I liked Ginestera’s settings of rather weird, almost surreal poems, by Silvina Ocampo much more. Los Horas de una Estancia sets five rather impressionistic poems going from dawn to night on the ranch.  There’s a simplicity to the musical writing that is rather appealing.  The piano part, for the most part, is quite sparse and the vocal line relatively unadorned which gives an appealing sense of the countryside where nothing very much happens and it happens slowly.  It’s a bit dreamy.  It was followed by Narmida playing Muvad Kazhlaev’s Piece (on the the theme of an Avar folk song).  I must listen to some Avar folk music because this was like no folk music I’ve ever heard!

Next came Gavin Bryars’ Five Songs from Northern Waters; a setting of five poems by George Bruce.  They are perhaps less bleak than one might expect from a Yorkshireman’s settings of texts by a guy from Fraserburgh but they do have the taste of the implacable North Sea.  They are surprisingly beautiful; ethereal in places, and beautifully sung and played.

The encore was, unsurprisingly, Vaughan Williams.  In this case “Whither Shall I Wander”; surely on the short list for “Finest Song in English” and nicely done.

The Met Thursdays at Noon series is nearly over for this season though the next two Thursdays see recitals by Michele Simmons and Noelle Slaney.  Btw, the three singers mentioned today plus bass Matthew Li are the section leads at Metropolitan United which shows that the tradition of high musical values at Met continues… as it has since the early 20th century when Met soprano soloist Bertha Crawford was the highest paid woman in the province!

The Thursdays at Noon concerts are streamed live on Youtube so you don’t even need to be downtown to hear them though the rather gorgeous surroundings of the church make it worth the trip; especially right now because there’s an interesting exhibition of paintings by Norval Morrisseau.

You can watch the whole concert here.