Music : John Aler at El Camino

Certainly not least of the pleasures of John Aler’s recital Friday evening at El Camino College South Bay Center for the Arts was a refreshing repertory. The tenor offered five sets in five languages at Marsee Auditorium, and none of it was hackneyed.

Aler was clearly warming up in the opening group of five of Reynaldo Hahn’s exalted parlor songs. Low notes disappeared, and the heroics of “La Peche” found his generous vibrato almost tremulous.

Indeed, there were indications throughout the program that Aler was not in the best of voice, in moments of inconsistent sound and quick releases of strained top notes. By the final set he was clearly tiring, but what a set--three songs and the Serenade from “Aleko” by Rachmaninoff, cleanly projected in all their melancholic mystery and passion.

The rest of the program included five songs by Beethoven, three Petrarch settings by Liszt culminating in a devasting “Pace non trovo,” and five Cole Porter songs. Whatever his true vocal estate, Aler maintained supple, fluent phrasing and complete textual clarity and generally firmly focused tone.

Pianist Michael Cordovana ably seconded Aler’s sophisticated artistry. The duo gave a sweet, typically understated account of Benjamin Britten’s setting of “The Sally Gardens” in encore.