Student recitals are another great opportunity to hear great music for free. On Sunday I attended soprano Leandra Dahm’s recital at Mazzoleni Hall. It was a caredfully curated programme lasting just over an hour and it was really good.

Mozart’s Vado, ma dove?, K.583 showed that she’s not short of power. Something that would be evident throughout the programme. It was also expressive and very stylish. Two of the songs from Messiaen’s Trois mélodies showed she also has good French diction and can be subtle, which these songs need.

Sheila Silver’s setting of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Mindful of You sounded a bit weird to me. The musical style; leaning towards the GAS like so much American art song, didn’t really suit the rather formal verse. Nicely sung though. Korngold’s Drei Lieder, Op.22 have that characteristically Korngold Weltmüdigkeit but are really lovely. They were sung very smoothly with an impressive amount of power..

After the interval we got Golijov’s Lúa Descoloida for soprano and string quartet which I had previously heard Leandra sing in all Golijov concert at the same venue just last month. It. has some cruelly high notes which were sung with impressive control backing up a generally rather lovely piece of singing. The string quartet; Ehrentraud Moser and Clara Moniz – violins, Shyler Macaggi – viola and Sabina Sandvoss – cello, were also very good indeed.

It was back to piano accompaniment for three songs from Lili Boulanger’s Clairières dans le ciel which were again sung with some style. The final set was Erik Ross’ rather weird, even sinister, setting of English translations of Baudelaire. These got a really emotional and expressive reading which was exciting but seemed to be pushing Leandra’s limits. It was a brave approach.

Piano accompaniment throughout was David Eliakis playing with his usual skill and versatility. All in all, an excellent recital from a very promising young soprano.