Julius Drake calls Clara Mouriz to take control

Julius Drake was due to be accompanying the tenor Andrew Kennedy in yesterday’s recital but on the latter’s indisposition Drake fielded a highly acceptable alternative: the prize-winning young Spanish mezzo-soprano Clara Mouriz, who is rapidly making a name for herself.

A lustrous beauty of tone and an engaging stage presence make Mouriz a magnetic performer, especially in an intimate venue such as this. Her charmingly delivered programme of folk-inspired song was received with enthusiasm, even if Drake’s accompaniments did not always match the vocal line in terms of warmth of tone and subtlety of inflection.

Manuel de Falla’s Seven Popular Spanish Songs run the gamut of love, sorrow, lullaby and village gossip; a range reflected in Mouriz’s idiomatic accounts. In Ravel’s Cinq Mélodies Populaires Grecques she likewise caught the note of rustic simplicity.

Returning to her native tongue, Mouriz presented Xavier Montsalvatge’s Cinco Canciones Negras, a group of songs evincing a non-politically correct nostalgia for the lost days of the Spanish colonies, in particular those of the Caribbean. The gentle tug of Cuban rhythms was nicely captured by the performers.

Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos, though not quite belonging here, was done with passion and a sense of drama.

New series: spring 2011 (020 8457 5000)

Clara Mouriz and Julius Drake
Ivy House
NW11