I fancy that the Wigmore Hall faces an annual quandary: what to do with that awkward post-Christmas week, when audiences are likely to be meagre and the bigger names reluctant to appear? Part of the solution this year was the Samarkand- born, Moscow-educated, London-resident soprano Alla Ablaberdyeva, who appeared with the 19-year-old, multi-competition-winning pianist Andrei Korobeinikov.

Since he speaks English as well as Russian, Italian and Esperanto, I expect he was embarrassed by his programme biography: "The maturity and breadth of his interpretations defy explanation and the audience will experience the music as if he were discovering it's [sic] fabric afresh, and making for each one of them, an exquisitely crafted gift. You will find his performance of this very demanding programme will change your understanding of the music you thought, you knew." In fact he plays extremely well, and understands perfectly how to defer to his singer without dulling any brilliant passage that comes his way.

Ablaberdyeva sang an all-Rachmaninov first half, nicely varied (and very nice for her eager pianist); only her last song there, the exuberant "Spring Waters", lacked the vital élan. This was understandable: with the hall less than half full, the soprano scaled her whole performance down to parlour-size, and a "Spring Waters" in full flood might have been alarming.

Both artists were sharp and clever in Prokofiev's five Akhmatova songs, op. 27, and in Shostakovich's five witty, mischievous Satires, op. 109. They concluded with the Auden-Britten Cabaret Songs, for which Miss Ablaberdyeva's excellent English equipped her charmingly. "Tell me the truth about love" deserves always to be a hit, and her unbuttoned rendition was winning as could be. I expect she could deliver an entire cabaret-evening famously.