In between Romantic-era operas "Der Rosenkavalier" and "Aida" at the Metropolitan Opera, I heard a concert that was musically a world away from these, English soprano Dame Emma Kirkby and Swedish lutenist Jakob Lindberg performing "Music at Twilight: Songs and Solos from Early 17th Century Europe," on October 20 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. The music came from France, England, Germany, Belgium, and Italy. Love was the concern of most of the songs and unrequited love, the subject of many of them.

I found Kirkby's early music soprano, which I was hearing for the first time, uniformly pure, as I expected, but not at all monochromatic. She possesses both light and dusky-colored tone to draw upon and varied dynamics are at her disposal, employed according to the moods and demands of the songs.

This listener was struck immediately by the haunting beauty of Kirkby's opening songs, Etienne Moulinié's "Paisible et ténébreuse nuit," a plaint of unrequited love, and Pierre Guédron's "Cessez, mortels, de souspirer," in which she conveyed ardent love. Mischief was in the air for her "Que Philis a l'esprit léger," a prayer by Jean-Baptiste Boësset, in which she gave thanks for being able to resist a fickle love.

In John Danyel's "Why canst thou not, as others do?" Kirkby struggled, with good humor, against the absence of love, but the mood turned melancholy for her "Time, cruel time," another Danyel song treating unrequited love. In his "He whose desires are still abroad," she coped with one who fails to recognize the value of what is near at hand.

Considering John Dowland works, in a buoyant "Away with these self-loving lads," Kirkby by turns gently chided the unloving, praised the loving, and chastised the fickle. His "Shall I strive with words to move?" found her keening about a love not returned, but in "Farewell unkind, farewell," she blithely bade 'adieu' to love unrequited.

Kirkby demonstrated her versatility in a pair of quasi-operatic German selections, markedly different from all the previous songs. In Georg Schimmelpfennig's "Dolce tempo passato," a lament for love lost, her lively, highly melismatic line gave way to keening in the final phrases of each of its two verses. In Heinrich Schütz's "Eile mich, Gott, zu erretten," from Psalm 70, she offered a dramatic prayer for deliverance from enemies. In her no less dramatic "Amico, hai vinto," Sigismondo D'India's setting of a scene from Torquato Tasso's epic "La Gerusalemme liberata," set during the Crusades, she portrayed both victor (male) and vanquished (female).

In songs by brothers Henry and William Lawes, Kirkby relished the arch Schadenfreude of the former's "Or you or I Nature did wrong," gloating over the passing of a false one's beauty, and in his contrasting "Slide soft you silver floods," sincerely mourned a lost love, but in the latter's piquant "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" with text by Sir John Suckling, she gave up, frankly and firmly, on an unresponsive love.

In music of Henry Purcell, Kirkby delighted us with a lilting, melismatic "She loves and she confesses too," with words by Abraham Cowley, from "The Mistress;" proffered a peaceful account of the familiar "Music for a while," from John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee's "Oedipus: A Tragedy;" and, for a grand finale, delivered a vivid "Bess of Bedlam," a tour-de-force "mad scene," in which the mood changes abruptly several times, as sadness and joy come and go suddenly, and in which she did not hesitate to conclude the line, "My music shall be a groan," with an actual groan.

The program was not wanting in solos for Lindberg, who played on a lute made by Sixtus Rauwolf in 1590. The lutenist took center stage for contrasting pieces by Robert Ballard, a restrained "Entrée de luth" and lively "Branles de village;" Dowland's contemplative Prelude and joyous Fantasia; Gregory Huwet's earnest Fantasia; and Alessandro Piccinini's measured Passacaglia. Lindberg's showpiece, near the end of the evening, was his appealing arrangement for lute of seven diverse Purcell pieces, "Cebell," originally for trumpet; the Echo dance of the Furies and Ritornell, "The Grove," from the opera "Dido and Aeneas;" a New Irish Measure and a New Scottish Measure; and keyboard pieces "A New Ground" and "Hornpipe."

During their two-week, nine American city tour, Kirkby and Lindberg are also performing another program, "Orpheus in England," music by Dowland and Purcell, in observance of the 350th anniversary of Purcell's birth. They will bring "Orpheus in England" to the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, 921 Madison Avenue at 73rd Street, on November 1 at 3 p.m. For remaining tickets, call 212/288-8920 or visit www.mapc.com.