There has already been a number of concerts marking the centenary of the birth of Gerald Finzi, but the Wigmore Hall's tribute is in many ways the most pertinent and rewarding. Finzi was at his best as a lyric composer when responding to words, and the Wigmore concerts contain five of the greatest examples of his art.

Christopher Maltman opened the Finzi series with the Thomas Hardy settings, Before and After Summer, and Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake continued the Hardy theme in their recital with A Young Man's Exhortation, composed in the late 1920s. Hardy is at the heart of Finzi's achievement as a composer of English song; more than 50 of his songs set the writer's words, and his ability to inhabit that dappled world and convey all the metrical and verbal intricacies of the poems, in settings that sound so spontaneous, is extraordinary.

Bostridge delivers this repertory quite wonderfully, savouring every word, making each phrase live an independent life. He deftly marks the repetitions and changes of inflection that are so important in Hardy's words, and the harmonic subtleties of Finzi's response to them. Both singer and pianist charted perfectly the cycle's progress from youth to old age and death, with each setting acquiring greater resonance. It was a remarkable achievement, a telling reminder that Finzi had few peers (just George Butterworth, perhaps?) as a composer of English song.

A Young Man's Exhortation was framed by two French cycles, Fauré's La Bonne Chanson and Poulenc's Tel Jour Telle Nuit. If the Poulenc is a series of haunting poems (by Paul Eluard) set very mundanely, then the Fauré is a much more balanced synthesis of words (by Paul Verlaine) and music. Bostridge's performance, however, hardly seemed to sound the emotional depths of either, and there was something decidedly superficial about the way in which each song followed so quickly upon its predecessor. It was the Finzi cycle that gave the evening its real distinction.