Yesterday’s recital in the RBA was given by soprano Simone Osborne and the very busy pianist Stephen Hargreaves.  The program began with three Mozart songs that I was not familiar with; Oiseaux, si tous les ans, Dans un bois solitaire and An Chloe.  They were unfamiliar to me but Mozartian in a pleasing, intimate way; very much songs rather than concert arias.  They got a clean, rather dramatic reading with real feeling from both parties.  Next came the Ariettes oubliées of Debussy.  Here we have texts by Verlaine of a mostly languorous ecstasy variety with a complex, very impressionistic piano part.  Indeed they really do sound like pieces composed by someone who prefers writing for the piano and Stephen brought out their somewhat ethereal qualities nicely.  Still the soprano gets to spin some very beautiful languorously ecstatic lines and there’s even one piece; Chevaux de bois, where the mood changes and the singer can have some fun.  Which Simone did.

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