The further you get from London, it seems, the rarer is the song recital. Yet Ryedale Festival clings tenaciously to this noble art-form, consistently proving its value and power to please.

We have had big names in the recent past, notably Thomas Allen and Joan Rodgers. This year it was the turn of two much younger singers, soprano Rowan Pierce and tenor Thomas Hobbs, accompanied by Christopher Glynn.

Before Britten and After provided a rich feast of English poetry set by English composers. Perhaps we might have had a glimpse of Dowland, the true father of English song. But in five Purcell numbers, exquisitely enhanced by Glynn’s improvised decorations, we were onto an early winner.

Hobbs launched bravely into Britten’s Winter Words, eight Thomas Hardy settings, probing nostalgia and lost innocence. He found the right tone of melancholy and was fully alive to the poetry, only needing a wider range of facial expression.

There was mystery, for example, in The Choirmaster’s Burial and pleasing irony in At The Railway Station, Upway.

Pierce, at once fearless and flexible, was charming in Vaughan Williams and Michael Head, but also expansive in Quilter’s Love’s Philosophy, where Glynn gave thrilling support.

Hobbs returned stirringly with Ireland’s Sea Fever and poignantly in Dibdin’s Tom Bowling, thereby encapsulating the essence of English song.

Wistful Flanders & Swann was balanced by Coward and Britten at the cabaret, intertwining humour and romance. Both voices had added admirably to Ryedale’s song tradition.