Until he woke without a voice yesterday morning, Philip Langridge was due to open the new series of song recitals at Middle Temple Hall. Deploying an address book second to none, series curator Julius Drake secured the services of Ian Bostridge, no less, who offered half the scheduled programme prefaced by a Schubert group already honed for a Paris recital next week.

The historic Middle Temple Hall, with its exquisite decoration and double hammerbeam roof, is - now that the acoustic and lighting problems have been solved - an ideal venue for song. It helped that Bostridge, with his nonchalant platform manner (hand in pocket, pacing the stage), included the entire audience with his laser-beam gaze.

The Schuberts were characterised by the intense, highly inflected delivery we have come to expect from Bostridge: every word weighed and weighted, its essence extracted, the vocal line moulded to capture that essence.

After an eloquent account of Britten's Winter Words, rising to a fiercely interrogative climax - how long before innocence be regained, the poet asks? - Bostridge was joined by the countertenor Iestyn Davies for a quietly moving performance of Britten's Canticle No2, Abraham and Isaac: the clash of filial love and duty distilled.