Lass mich sein! Richard Laing savours a rare moment of stillness in central London

These intensely personal poems are well served by the original piano accompaniment, and to hear them with orchestra instead is to see private passions painted on a large, public canvas. The success of such a performance depends on the ability of the singer to draw us in to the secretive world of the poems. How fortunate, then, that the Resonate Symphony Orchestra and conductor Henry Kennedy were able to secure a singer as beguiling as Rachel Nicholls for this concert, especially since she was rehearsing for English National Opera’s The Valkyrie on the morning of the performance.