Portsmouth Festivities - Catherine Bott and James Bowman

Catherine Bott and James Bowman, Portsmouth Cathedral, Monday 22 June

You don't always get quite what you're expecting and it's not always a bad thing. James Bowman has long been one of my favourite singers on account of his recording of Couperin's heavenly Lecons de Tenebres and so I wasn't expecting to see him perform duets like O What Very Charming Weather. While this sort of parlour entertainment would have been familiar to our grandparents, it was an unusual mix for us. Having been given a free hand to perform whatever they would, Bott and Bowman presented an idiosyncratic pot pourri of Handel opera, Michael Tippett, English folk songs and Noel Coward among a varied selection. Bowman is apparently moving forward in his career from other worldly counter tenor to part-time comic turn.

Both singers began with unaccompanied solo pieces that showed off their extraordinary voices, leaving top notes resounding in the clerestory. Then they chose fittingly sea-related songs from The Tempest, Blow the Wind Southerly, Full Fathom Five as well as a duet from Julio Caesare, folk standards like All Things Are Quite Silent and moved on to mark midsummer with Gershwin's Summertime and some gaiety from Flanders and Swann.

Catherine Bott's soprano might have been marginally the more impressive overall but Bowman retains the capacity to astound with his remarkable tone and surge of power. The strength of his counter tenor voice is the more remarkable when contrasted with his more ordinary performances when required in the middle register.

Moving readily between elegiac moods and witty lightheartedness they made a lively if approximately matched couple as if on a date that had yet to prove it would lead to a permanent relationship. But it was a pleasure, an old fashioned English sort of treasure that fitted in a much wider range of songs than you would hear in almost any other show. For both novelty value and top quality voices, they are a rare combination.