'I’ve never heard of him,” exclaimed the lady sitting behind me. I hasten to add that she was referring to composer Henri Duparc, not the distinguished baritone Sir Thomas Allen, who gave the Patron’s Recital to a packed University Church at this year’s Oxford Lieder Festival.

It’s not surprising that Duparc isn’t better known, for only 17 of his songs survive, of which Allen sang four. Their melodious nature and subtle changes of colour suited his voice well, and it was interesting to see how this titan of large-scale opera reduced his physical gestures to small, but often telling, hand movements. Musically, Allen suggested that Duparc was influenced by both Fauré and Berlioz. Fauré himself came next, with Allen switching to lighter, but descriptive vocal colouring — the line “I have embarked on a ship that reels", definitely suggested a lack of present-day stabilisers, while the song Diane, Séléné ended with a breathtakingly steady note.

Allen is renowned for his sense of humour, and in the second half he got the chance to show it in two immaculately delivered song cycles by Ravel, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and Histoires naturelles. “I drink to joy! Joy is the only goal to which I go straight when I’m drunk,” he sang with obvious glee. A strut was added to the tale of a peacock whose bride fails to turn up for her wedding, while some beautifully timed awkward pauses were inserted as the self-admiring bird waited in vain. Roger Vignoles was the ideal accompanist throughout.

Catherine Hopper is without doubt a singer with strong future career prospects. She appeared during the evening in a “Fifteen minutes of fame” spot. Skilfully accompanied by John Reid, I have rarely heard a voice so expressively well-balanced right across the mezzo range.