The second night of young artists and new music in the Park Lane Group’s annual series celebrated “the essence, quintessence, innocence, licence and magnificence of Nonsense upon Sense”. Here was performer and composer in one: the pianist James Young accompanied his own settings of some of the most deliciously excessive nonsense verse ever written, that of the 16th-century poet John Taylor.
The recitatives, arias, intermezzos and scherzos that formed this hilarious 12-minute piece called Meet the Indefatigable John Taylor might not have created a song cycle for posterity. But it certainly unbuttoned the very English baritone of John Savournin.
Although he was Lamda-trained, Savournin is as yet a cautious performer. Immaculately groomed, his baritone needs to dare much more than the limited palette of colour