Bryn Terfel is such a whole-hearted performer that, even though tickets for this performance cost £250, no one could have felt short-changed.

The black-tie (though not for Terfel and his superb accompanist, Malcolm Martineau) gala launched the last lap of the Wigmore's fundraising to buy its lease, and since both hall and Terfel have fans galore, the recital could have sold out several times over.

The programme balanced precariously between the measured seriousness of Schubert and the high-octane emotionalism of such Celtic chestnuts as Loch Lomond and Danny Boy, for which Big Bryn has a soft spot.

For Molly Malone, he even had the audience, royals and all, on their feet and joining in the choruses.

The main body of the programme, however, was dedicated to English composers, to whose work Terfel brings an inward-looking intensity that few other singers match.

One of his greatest virtues is his care over text; despite the faux demotic of the John Masefield poems, he brought clarity and natural speech-rhythms to songs by John Ireland, Peter Warlock and Frederick Keel, while in a pair of songs by Vaughan Williams he found a mood of reverie that belies his boyo-next-door image.

His voice is huge and sometimes it feels as though he's working overtime to scale it down. It may be churlish to suggest that occasionally a little less feeling might not go amiss but if his sudden crescendos and fortissimos tend to distort the musical and verbal sense, his sincerity is never in doubt.

Among many encores was Don Giovanni's serenade from Mozart's opera. Climbing down from the stage, he worked the auditorium like a honey-and-hellfire preacher, falling on his knees before this or that (female) member of the audience, scattering flowers hither and yon.

Only Terfel could get away with it.