It takes a player with fire in the soul and muscle in the forearm to pull off this

It takes a player with fire in the soul and muscle in the forearm to pull off this music. Tasmin Little has it; but Cho-Liang Lin? I’m not so sure.Countertenors aren’t exactly fire-and-muscle voices, least of all the Oxbridge chapel breed who dominate the English market; but the impeccably Oxbridge Michael Chance is exceptional in being both one of the meatier and more animated of these voices. At his Wigmore Hall recital on Wednesday he talked (always a mistake) about his mission to liberate his voice-type from imprisonment in music which is either old or other-worldly; to make the point he then sang some of Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad songs.As an example of boldly going where no countertenor has gone before, this was pretty audacious. Chance argues that the modern countertenor is essentially a 20th-century English invention grounded in the same culture as English Pastoral – so why not sing English Pastoral repertory? At face value it’s a fair point, and you might say that a high voice is appropriate to the youthful innocence, young lads and early death which are the leitmotifs of Housman’s poems. But I’m not sure that the white tonal qualities of a countertenor do suggest youth and innocence, or even remembrance of those qualities. Death, maybe – and the one song in the group that I thought might just work was “Is My Team Ploughing?”, where the words are partly addressed from beyond the grave.

But even there the high pitch felt uncomfortable – more Oriental Camp than English Lad – and it was left to the supremely sensitive piano playing of Julius Drake to keep the song in contact with its cultural roots.If I don’t welcome Michael Chance’s bid for freedom, it’s nothing personal. In accustomed countertenor repertory, such as the Purcell items included in this programme, he’s a wonderfully engaging singer who I’ll always want to hear But off-patch he’s an alien being Countertenor liberation? Not for me.. NO GIGS this week. The code of pop practice decrees that famous bands may not play live in the first two weeks of January, hence the absence of names in bold print in today’s column. Still, if we can’t review any specific concerts, we can review shows in general. Because a troubling proportion of gigs are, to be frank, not up to much The reason? They don’t have to be.

Half of the audience will be either intoxicated by their adoration of the group on stage, or intoxicated by some other means. All they want is the hormone-boiling buzz of being close enough to smell their idols’ anoraks. The musicians can stroll on, bash through their repertoire, stroll off, and be assured of blind and deaf devotion. Indeed, when a group is even slightly theatrical, no one can believe it. Skunk Anansie’s excellent live act is described ad nauseam as “scary”, because their singer jumps up and down a bit.