Henri Duparc's slender output consists of a couple of orchestral pieces that we never hear and 17 songs which are among the greatest ever written. Many of the latter are, of course, familiar in recital, but we don't often hear all 17 in a single evening. This concert, however, gave us precisely that. Performed in chronological order, the songs were shared between mezzo Sarah Connolly and baritone Henk Neven. Malcolm Martineau was the pianist.

The two singers adopted differing approaches, though both avoided the reined-in, muted style that can sometimes hinder our appreciation of French song. Connolly was all tonal opulence and majestically sweeping lines; Neven was more detailed and expressionistic, with each of his songs swerving towards a dramatic monologue. Connolly sounded a bit too decent in L'Invitation au Voyage, and every so often you wished she would do more with the words. Neven, however, could have done with some of her steadiness: he was plagued with intonation problems in his upper registers for much of the evening's first half.

Yet there was plenty to ponder despite the flaws. Hearing Duparc done on a large-ish scale is to be reminded of just how Wagnerian he is (Elégie is straight out of Tristan und Isolde), a point also emphasised by Martineau's big-boned, intensely lyrical playing. Deploying two low voices, meanwhile, resulted in an occasional lack of contrast, but also allowed us to focus on the pervasive darkness of mood within the music itself. We tend to think of Duparc as a Romantic eroticist. Most of his songs, in fact, examine extremes of existential despair, none more so, perhaps, than La Vague et La Cloche, terrifyingly sung by Neven at the recital's mid-point.