John Courtney may not have travelled to 17th-century Italy, but he would surely have been aware of the wealth of virtuoso songs written by Renaissance composers including Barbara Strozzi, Claudio Monteverdi and Sigismondo D’India. This is a programme full of contradictions: this is the age when solo singers created stories and characters that are eerily familiar in their range of human emotions, yet wildly strange in their plots and the extreme situations the characters find themselves. When a passion for storytelling – “drammi per musica” – for elevating the words over the music, coincided with a step change in vocal techniques required to deliver them, and with a corresponding sense of risk and adventurous harmony in the continuo part. This is an era where heroines are as expressive as heroes, and the sopranos who sang them became celebrated and notorious in equal measure.

“Williams’s vocal dexterity and emotional finesse turned the singer’s sorrow into the listener’s joy – as did Kenny’s ravishing accompaniments” Artsdesk