Claire Barnett-Jones with Rebecca Cohen at the Menuhin Room

Claire Barnett-Jones and Rebecca Cohen, Menuhin Room, Portsmouth, Nov 1 

Reading the biographical notes of Claire Barnett-Jones and Rebecca Cohen, it suddenly dawned on me. They have performed in such prestigious venues as Wigmore Hall and now I realize that the Menuhin Room is Portsmouth answer to that special place. Not quite as exquisite in its decor but its Portsmouth equivalent, given that Portsmouth architecture doesn't equate to London's on the whole, and with a comparably well-informed audience and engaging programme of events.

'A recital inspired by the unique voice of Alma Mahler' is a bit more 'niche' than a Classic FM Four Seasons by Candlelight experience but one can't live by popular classics alone. Our ongoing adventures into music can't afford to stop, not least because for a long time we might have thought that names like Mendelssohn, Schumann, Mozart and Mahler meant Felix, Robert, Wolfgang and Gustav and not Fanny, Clara, Nannerl and Alma but we know better by now. Alma, as we found out, was at least as feisty as any of them, and then some.

Her songs, interspersed with those of Zemlinsky, Richard Strauss, Korngold and her first husband, are high church Romanticism, beginning with the melancholy of Der Stille Stadt. In meines Vater's Garten featured some vivid narrative in Rebecca's colourful accompaniment.

Claire's mezzo is rich and capable of great power when unleashed but that wasn't always what was required. Gustav Mahler's Liebst du um Schönheit was poignant and Strauss's Die Nacht anxious before Zueignung more powerfully 'banished evil spirits' on All Soul's Day. Also, in Der Erkennende, the desolation of,

One thing I know, never shall anything be mine. My only possession is to recognize that fact.

defined what the consolation of art is.

Korngold's Der Kranke was hauntingly despairing but then, in a genre that doesn't have much time for irony, his My Mistress' eyes was a lyrical setting of Shakespeare's unflatteringly realistic sonnet. Ending with Alma's Ekstase, Claire and Rebecca transcended this sublunary world but most of us not fluent in German might not have realized most of what was happening without an excellent text provided with translations which was gratefully received. However, a most ingenious and entertaining encore was Tom Lehrer's The Loveliest Girl in Vienna, by way of a contrast but an equally fitting tribute.