Ryedale District Council supports the Ryedale Festival.

Dave Robson - Darlington and Stockton Times -Friday 7th August 2009

CLARE McCaldin and Paul Turner’s morning coffee concert in the elegant saloon of Duncombe Park turned out to be a diverting, varied and well-attended exploration of song dedications.

Robert Schumann’s passionate song of dedication to his wife Clara, Widmung, was paired with Clara’s own, more restrained, gentler, Liebst du um Schönheit. Both are to settings of poems by Rückert.

In the same way, McCaldin paired two French art songs, Mandoline and En sourdine by Fauré to create a differing mood, a perhaps less intense air of dedication. So, too, Henri Duparc’s darker character of Lamento was followed by the beautifully floated phrases of Phidylé.

Judith Weir’s Voice of Desire cycle brought contrast of voice, with the birdsong of Turner’s piano part most effective here and in the humour of the following Samuel Barber/Gerard Manley Hopkins’ A nun takes the veil.

Even lighter mood were hit songs by Bernstein, Donald Swan, a trio of Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and Sondheim, all diverting before the final Schubert An die Musik as encore, rounded off as civilised a way of spending a morning as any.