It began with silence.

Claire Booth entered, took her seat at the piano, and waited, focused. Then, out of the quiet emerged the pure, unaccompanied voice to recount the ballad of young love, a love that was to grow only to end in a tragically early death. Benjamin Britten’s setting of “The trees they grow so high” takes us through this sad tale, the piano tentatively and sparely at first joining the singer as hope is first expressed, then dashed. The final two lines, unaccompanied, were sung with heart-breaking intensity. This recital was to be a duet for one, Claire Booth accompanying herself throughout, creating a particular intimacy, especially in the quieter moments when every syllable could be clearly heard. The opening set included Britten’s “The Ash Grove”, with its unexpected harmonies in the second verse reflecting the sad loneliness of loss. Just occasionally, some of the diction too was lost in the resonant, though splendid, setting of the De Jager Auditorium in the new Levine Building of Trinity College. However, the chorale-like accompaniment in “O Waly, Waly” perfectly captured the anguish of the text.

Next, Booth gave a very personal account of how, through lockdown, and with no recourse to her pianist, she had begun a project of self-accompanying, a mode of performance more familiar among singers in the worlds of jazz and pop. She is a natural communicator, the directness of her speaking matching the deceptive simplicity of her singing, although to experience the latter was in itself a masterclass: her sustained lines, faultless intonation, emotional range and exemplary technique all reflecting an uncanny identification with the characters whose lives, loves and deaths she recounts in song.

Two songs followed by the 19th/20th century Venezuelan-born French composer Reynaldo Hahn, himself a multi-faceted musician and accompanist of his own singing, as Booth explained, suggesting that a single performer might bring “another prism…. with music and text coming from a single source”. The immediately satisfying baroque-like tread of the bass accompaniment together with the stylish ornamentation gave “A Chloris” (“To Chloris”) the feel of an operatic aria. Booth was majestic here, her singing rich and dignified, before fading beautifully into contemplation at the final declaration of love. “Le Rossignol des lilas” (“The nightingale among the lilac”), was a showcase for Hahn’s lyrical writing for voice and piano, and for Booth’s triumphant evocation of the ardour felt at the first appearance of the nightingale.

Robert Schumann’s “Frauenliebe und -leben”, written in 1840, grew out of the composer’s love for Clara Wieck and the legal battle he had to fight with her father in order to marry her. He won. The set of eight poems by Adalbert von Chamisso, about a man described as “Der Herrlichste von allen” (“The most wonderful of all” – the title of the second song) traces the course of the relationship from the first time the young woman sees him, through courtship, marriage, children and finally to death. In turn, Booth conveyed passion and quiet contentment in her interpretation, relishing the suspensions between piano and voice in the opening “Seit ich ihn gesehen” (“Since first seeing him”), and in the second song, bringing nobility to the portrait of her beloved and a touching breathiness at the realisation that he might indeed never even meet her. However, he does, and in the following song “Ich kann’s nicht fasssen, nicht glauben” (“I cannot grasp it, believe it”), Booth demonstrated her natural, unaffected ability to share the suddenness of changing emotions. This vividness was reflected again in “Du Ring an meinem Finger” (“You ring on my finger”), her tone exquisitely warm and limpid, happiness fulfilled.

There were moments during the cycle when the busy accompaniment tended almost to drown and obscure the singing, beautiful as it was, for example in “Helft mir, ihr Schwestern” (“Help me, my sisters”). Balance was restored immediately afterwards in “Süsser Freund, du blickest” (“Sweet friend, you look”) with Booth’s gentle playing supporting her appealing outpouring of anxiety, almost beyond words. Here, we could enjoy the full range of her emotion as she conveyed increasing urgency, and then, utterly convincingly, the hesitancy and vulnerability, the fear of coming out of a dream, before the words “dein Bildnis” (“your image”) brought the song to its timeless conclusion. Booth’s fine playing was again in evidence – though occasionally too strongly again - in the rippling, restless accompaniment to “An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust” (“On my heart, at my breat”), as she sang of the breathless excitement of love before ending in almost ecstatic peace. The dark tone, bitter and forlorn, at the opening of the final song “Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan” (“Now you have caused me my first pain”) was perfectly judged by Booth, her voice now quivering, empty, ghostly, at the encounter with death. The final verse immersed us all in tragedy. Booth was at her most mesmerising here, both vocally – one could almost sense the silent tears – and in the sighing of the ineffable beauty of her final accompaniment.

It ended in a long silence. Claire Booth had completed her emotional journey and left us, staring heartbroken into the emptiness. Sometimes, less is more. Not on this occasion. The recital, scheduled to last an hour, had lasted barely forty minutes. We can only hope that she returns, and soon.