Philippe Jaroussky, Wigmore Hall, London, review:

The French superstar countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, was accompanied by his period-instrument backing band, Le Concert de la Loge, under violinist Julien Chauvin

The famous French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky performed at London's Wigmore Hall (Simon Fowler )

Thirty-eight-year-old French superstar countertenor Philippe Jaroussky arrived at Wigmore Hall with his first venture into exclusively German territory with sacred cantatas by Telemann and Bach… and accompanying CD. Jaroussky’s remarkable voice puts one more in mind of a young David Daniels rather than the Bowman/Iestyn Davies English style, possessing a sweet, bright purity and the easy naturalness of a bird.

Cantatas, meditating on the week’s Gospel readings, sat at the heart of Lutheran worship, and this concert pointed up how Telemann – whose 'Die Stille Nacht', for example, depicts Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemene – didn’t go after the heart-strings, but negotiated the narrative through varied instrumental colour, buoyed up on graceful rhythmic energy. The almost over-familiar ‘Ich habe genug’, by contrast, showed Bach’s peerless genius for conveying deep feeling, as it floated on Jaroussky’s impossibly sustained legato.

Though not the one on the disc, Jaroussky’s immensely accomplished period-instrument backing band – Le Concert de la Loge under violinist Julien Chauvin – deserve the highest praise for ornamentation without affectation, skilled use of dynamics to underpin drama, and superb intonation from everyone. They also gave an outstanding performance of Bach’s 'Orchestral Suite Nº 2', revealing it, with Tami Krausz on baroque flute, to be a flute concerto in all but name. An evening both characterful and sublime; what more could one ask?