Geraldine Montague's debut recital last Monday showed that her voice, though trained, keeps a youthful naturalness which brought a special feeling of innocence to the songs in her programme. Schubert's The Trout was a tale of wide-eyed wonder, and not a familiar anecdote; Brahms's Vain Serenade was free of unnecessary suggestiveness. Hein Boterberg at the piano matched her voice in its restraint and delicacy and when depth of feeling was called for, as in Rubbra's setting of Take oh take those lips away, it was produced without any forcing of tone.

Geraldine Montague was born in Cork but grew up in Sweden, and her selection of songs by Stenhammar and Sibelius was sung with such sympathetic understanding that one would like to hear her in a recital of songs in Swedish alone.

She was joined by Ellen Cranitch (flute) and Una Ni Chanainn (cello) for Rubbra's Cantata Pastorale. As no texts were supplied for this work, not even the bare summaries that were given for the other songs, I don't know what she was singing about (words by Plato and St. Augustine), but voice, piano, flute and cello made a beautiful blend. The same grouping was used in two arias by Handel, where the words were of less importance.

At this stage her voice has still to develop a greater proficiency in changing colour to suit varying moods, and though all consonants are not equally important, none should disappear. The criticism does not apply to Quilter's Now sleeps the crimson petal, where the talent succeeded in cleaning off the grime of the usual self-indulgent interpretations.