It would be difficult, after twenty such successful years, for any individual recital to be regarded as the Oxford Lieder Festival 'at its best', but 'Songs and Moods' at St John the Evangelist must come close. Here was programme planning at its most adventurous, focussing on the Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar in particular, but also familiarising an English public with the work of no less than six other Swedish composers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet this was no random selection, even as part of the festival’s Scandinavian Landscapes day, and one supported by the excellent programme notes. And how appropriate to be marking the 150^th anniversary of the birth of Stenhammar this year.

Stenhammar, a prolific composer not only of songs but also of orchestral, symphonic, choral and chamber music, readily acknowledged the influence of Nielsen and Sibelius, reflecting the contemporary musical connections between the Scandinavian nations. As a conductor himself, he actively promoted the work of other Nordic composers too. One of them, Hugo Alfven, who featured in this recital, in fact succeeded Stenhammar as conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

The evening began with the striking contrasts of mood that were to characterise the recital, vividly conveyed by the Swedish soprano Agnes Auer, one of the Lieder Festival’s Emerging Artists. Opening delightfully, almost coquettishly, with the carefree happiness and impish humour of Adolf Fredrik Lindblad’s A maiden’s morning reflections, Auer then transported us with her rich, pure tone - especially in the higher register - to the peaceful calm and peace of his Evening, before her languorous portrayal of Ture Rangström’s Pan. The two final songs in her opening group of eight songs by six Swedish composers were a powerful calling card. Wilhelm Peterson-Bergergave Auer the opportunity, which she seized with intuitive sensitivity and verve, to reveal the full extent of her emotional maturity, moving effortlessly from the sad, grandiose and finally heartrending When I by myself to the hypnotic rhythms of a folk dance (Polska from Aspåker), ending with unalloyed optimism, triumphantly, scintillatingly.

Soprano Camilla Tilling’s interpretation of six Stenhammer songs from Op. 4, 37 and 16 revealed immediately why his work should be better known outside Scandinavia, and why she was the perfect ambassador for it. In the opening song, The maiden came from her lover’s tryst, Tilling positively melted our hearts as the maiden found ways to hide the fact of the tryst from her mother; by the end, subterfuge was impossible, Tilling using her final, pulsating melody to plunge us into the despair, the emptiness and the eerie silence of the truth, with phrasing of unbearable beauty and pathos. Throughout these songs, she was by turns questioning or desolate, joyful or bitter, impassioned in In the twilight of the maple tree acting as both protagonist and commentator, and wrestling achingly with sorrow at the abrupt end of Ingalill. Later in the programme, Camilla Tilling gave an exemplary lesson in the power of music to convey meaning beyond translation (there can have been few in the audience who understood the Swedish texts in full). She swept now delicately, now forcefully as appropriate, through the ages of man – maybe seven, maybe not – as she conveyed the illusory nature of life itself, a sense that all is not always what it seems. Her final song, In the forest, also one of Stenhammer’s finest, made a fitting climax, as the sheer grace of her singing, the contrast between the subtle changes of mood between the nightingale and the orchid, and her almost operetta-like joy at the blushing morning led us to an ending that was, despite everything, deeply satisfying.

'Songs and Moods' was the title not only of the recital but also of its major Stenhammar work, sung with robust, dramatic conviction by Swedish baritone Jakob Högström. Whether it was the velvet of Venus’s fleeing mantle, or the mix of fragility and stability with which he conveyed the contrasts of Butterfly Orchid (in which the piano really was the butterfly), or the dark, tragic, Nordic gloom and fear that pervade Miss Blond and Miss Brunette, Högström was equal to every challenge. He was heavy with sadness, deliberate in his phrasing in When the shadow of the casement falls in the room; pensive in the miniature Why hurry so to rest; even convincingly lecherous in To the land of bliss as he powered towards its triumphant, witty end, understanding deeply the timelessness of the attitudes of which he sang. This was a monumental performance of the cycle, perhaps nowhere more so than in the concluding two songs, Costal Song with its pessimistic descending sequence of rising fifths telling us that death is the end; and Prince Aladdin of the lamp, the light flickering from the piano, the dark voice hinting at the violence beneath the surface, the chorale-like conclusion leading us to the sustained terror of the D minor coda. Högström had brilliantly drained us all emotionally by the end.

Throughout, Sholto Kynoch proved himself the most sensitive, supportive yet never subordinate of accompanists. His word-painting of the poetry, especially the images of nature which inspired the theme of the festival, was immediate, now profound, now dancing, now commenting, now playful, creating or reflecting back the sense of the texts. The bond with each of the singers was a notable feature of the recital.

There has to be mention of the encore, a moment of pure delight and, yes, magic: Tilling and Högström returned to give us the duet Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. They had first sung the roles of Papagena and Papageno together twenty years previously - in Swedish - their performance reminding this reviewer of the great Ingmar Bergman’s film of the opera made in Sweden in 1975. There were further connections too: that film was set in a mock-up version of the Drottningholm Theatre; and both Jakob Högström and Agnes Auer have performed with Drottningholm baroque ensembles in the past. This was an inspired end to a gloriously rich evening’s music.