Ailish Tynan, soprano; Ian Wilson, recorder; Libby Burgess, piano

It was billed as “A homage to birds in music” by the Oxford Lieder Festival. Hark! Hark! The Lark was certainly that, but even more, it proved to be a thrilling encounter with an exceptionally wide range of music inspired by birdsong from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries.

Imaginatively structured, the mesmerising programme alternated between vocal and instrumental compositions. Soprano Ailish Tynan filled the church of St John the Evangelist not only with a purity of sound but with rich emotion too, accompanied by Libby Burgess, whose piano fluttered and danced, at times grandiose or delicate as the songs demanded (and who also provided the most eloquent and informative of programme notes for the enthusiastic audience). At the end of each section, Ian Wilson performed on a range of recorders, the instrument most traditionally associated with birdsong, his breath-taking virtuosity apparent throughout.

The quotation from Shakespeare that gave its name to the recital naturally featured in it too. Ailish Tynan conveyed beautifully the sweet optimism of Schubert’s Ständchen, while Libby Burgess’s horses positively galloped in taut rhythm across the keyboard. After the triumphant end to the opening song, Tynan’s voice was laden with sorrow, full and heavy, as she recounted in Barber’s The Crucifixion the unimaginable suffering of Mary as if it were the suffering of every mother on the loss of a child, hanging infinitely, timelessly, on that last note of longing. And then, positioned just by the crucifix itself high up in the church, the Thrush from Upper Dunakyn started singing, hesitant, perhaps glancing this way and that, as Ian Wilson made his first appearance, drawing the audience’s attention upwards to the compelling sound of his birdsong. Later, in The Bird Fancyer’s Delight of 1717, he portrayed with verve and not a little humour the contrasting songs of the skylark, bullfinch and parrot.

The recital was neatly divided into six sections, taking us first from the Dawn Chorus via Lovebirds to Birds of Longing, in which Tynan captured so movingly the exquisite, bittersweet pain of the Scottish folksong Ye Banks and Braes in Quilter’s distinctive arrangement, and Burgess accompanied the flight of The Wild Swan with majestic chords and scale sequences, ending somewhere suitably indeterminate.

The mid-point of the recital was also a climax in itself, with all three artists joining in Handel’s Recitative and Hush ye pretty warbling choir, from the opera Acis and Galatea. This was both high art and irrepressible entertainment, Tynan turning the encounter with the birds into a story of mock frustration at their ceaseless singing. Her “Hu-u-u-sh!”, long drawn-out and leading only to more impatience as Wilson’s sopranino recorder burst in again and again, repeatedly drew engaged laughter from the audience. Singer, pianist, recorder player – their timing was consummate. Galatea could simply not silence the birds, not even with her rapturous mellifluence in “Cease your song”. In a programme of delights, this was something special.

Yet the audience revelled in its bird sanctuary for much longer. The nightingale has been among the most represented bird in all music, and featured here memorably in the duet of two registers of Jacob Van Eyck’s English Nightingale, real chirruping emerging from the descant recorder. The ensuing section took the bird as its title – Voice of the Nightingale. In a most varied group, Tynan entranced the audience in Fauré’s Ensourdine with the full extent of her range, the dark depth describing the evening falling from the black oaks, before suddenly metamorphosing into the floating purity of the final line – Le rossignol chantera. Perfection. Messiaen had to feature, of course, in this programme, Wilson’s delicate playing of his Vocalise contrasting nicely with Wolf’s Ganymed.

The penultimate group, Changing places, gave yet more insights into the musical world of birds: Tynan’s self-important cuckoo reflected in the similarly brash accompaniment of Mahler’s Ablösung; birds seemed to go almost mad in Burgess’s brilliant playing of Judith Weir’s Fish bird, leaving unresolved the question “Is it true?”; and Wilson’s portrayal of Hans-Martin Linde’s Music for a bird was a tour de force of sweeping glissandi, unearthly sounds, eerie chords (yes, chords, on a recorder!), and total disintegration at the end, perhaps illustrating the bird losing its way altogether?

Pigeon post brought this unusual recital to a rousing and perhaps unexpected conclusion. The relentless rhythm in Burgess’s piano of Schubert’s Taubenpost, and Tynan’s evocative dreaming, her longing, her undying hope in the “messenger of constancy”, were the epitome of love at a distance. Finally, lest it all appeared just too sad, they ended with the black humour and impish innocence of Tom Lehrer’s Poisoning pigeons in the park, outrageous rhymes and all. It takes a particular skill to sing Lehrer’s songs if you are not Tom Lehrer! And Ailish Tynan brought it off magnificently, eyebrows working overtime, as she added the final, sparkling touch to the canvas of this exceptional recital.