For the past few years Oriel College has sponsored an annual visiting artist concert to honour a performer. This year’s choice was accompanist Roger Vignoles who performed with counter-tenor Michael Chance at Holywell Music Room on May 9.

Vignoles has gained an international reputation. He maintains a busy schedule of recitals, collaborating with a large number of leading singers. He has recorded an extensive repertoire and is much in demand as a teacher. Vignoles and Michael Chance are both well known to Oxford audiences.

In recent years counter-tenors have taken on repertoire traditionally sung by a tenor or baritone. Vignoles and Chance presented an intriguing programme spanning periods and styles. In the first section Dowland and Schubert pieces were juxtaposed, exploring affinities in songs of melancholy and despair.

Works by Purcell, two in arrangements by Britten, followed. After the interval the artists began with Tippett’s three songs for Ariel, then Butterworth’s settings of Housman wonderfully adapted to the counter-tenor voice. Finally we heard a series of Shakespeare settings from different composers and centuries, including Finzi’s magnificent Feel no more the heat of the sun. The versatility of Vignoles’s art was on display. In the opening set the delicate transpositions of the lute to the Dowland were like a second voice decorating the vocal line. In contrast the Britten accompanying Purcell had a brisk independence. The playing in the Butterworth showed particular subtlety. For example, in Is My Team Ploughing? each verse is introduced by the same ambiguous chord.

Vignoles coloured these notes differently each time to wonderful dramatic effect. As an encore the pair performed a charming piece which, unlike everything else in the concert, they wickedly did not introduce.

For anyone still wondering it was A Chloris by Reynaldo Hahn.