TCHAIKOVSKY and Rachmaninov romances were to have been the theme of

the romantic young Dmitri Hvorostovsky's recital, but in fact he sang

Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov as well, all with the same finely measured

utterance, the beauty of tone within a limited range of baritone

colouring, the grandly sweeping gestures that form part of what we like

to think of as the Russian tradition.

Not for nothing, it seemed, had the boy from Siberia been awarded the

BBC's Singer of the World prize three years ago.

Yet about his programme as a whole there was a lack of focus, of that

sense of structure through which one discovers why certain songs are

chosen and sung in a certain order.

Keener characterisation, and greater differentiation between one song

and the next, would doubtless have made the first, all-Tchaikovsky half

of the recital seem more cogent.

The audience's determination to applaud every song did not help.

Perhaps the sheer size of the Usher Hall was partly to blame for what

one could only call the lack of personality, and for a certain monotony

of timbre.

Yet when passion erupted, as in Rimsky's song about the pounding and

surging breakers, both the singer and his accompanist, Julian Reynolds,

rose without roughness to the occasion.

The fine-grained artistry with which Hvorostovsky used his voice was

never less than impressive, and his avoidance of the coarseness that

some Russian singers bring to the concert platform was to be praised.

Tchaikovsky's None But the Lonely Heart -- or (as it was called this

time) No, Only Those Who Have Longed -- did not drip with emotion and

sounded all the better for being sung without exaggeration.

By the time he reached his final Rachmaninov group Hvorostovsky was

into his stride.