Part of the Wigmore’s Henry Purcell retrospective, this programme supported by five members of the English Concert under its artistic director, Harry Bicket, featured two of today’s undoubted countertenor stars.

Now in his late 40s, Andreas Scholl retains the gentle but luminous quality of tone that has always marked his singing, and his voice blended perfectly with the slightly warmer and rounder timbre offered by the 12 years younger Iestyn Davies. Both are fine musicians, though in terms of clarity of enunciation Scholl, arguably, had the edge on his English colleague.

But in essence this was a great double act, sampling extracts (some very well known) from Purcell’s birthday odes for Queen Mary, music written in her memory either by Purcell or his teacher John Blow, and extracts from large-scale stage works such as King Arthur and The Fairy Queen.

The two countertenors tripped gracefully around the dancing notes of Sound the Trumpet from Come Ye Sons of Art, maintaining a flawless neatness of attack as they swapped individual lines back and forth. A duet version of the Evening Hymn also saw them sharing its long, thoughtful lines with a perfectly coordinated passing-the-baton technique.

Scholl entertained with one of his party pieces, the Cold Song from King Arthur – officially a bass number, but one Scholl acquired through his enthusiasm for the multifarious German cult countertenor Klaus Nomi. Another of the concert’s highlights was his freely flowing interpretation of Music for a While, which achieved that rare quality of sounding genuinely improvised.

Davies was no less memorable in his solo numbers, notably Fairest Isle, while Bicket and his players accompanied both artists with imagination, throwing in a handful of instrumentals, including a refined but intense Fantasia by John Jenkins.