‘This music has the power to connect the avant-garde with the lost paradise of tonality,’ said Robin Holloway once about Britten. He might have been talking about this Blake set, a standout in Britten’s still often underrated output of the 1960s, written for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau after his contribution to the War Requiem. Peter Pears chose the texts from Songs of Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. ‘When I think of the wonderful words I feel rather inadequate’, was the composer’s comment. But they inspired him to a through-composed cycle with the seven Proverbs in ritornello form (using, rather like The Turn of the Screw, clusters of notes in a 12-tone scheme) and the poems drawing such unpredictable effects as ‘Tyger, tyger, burning bright’, accompanied almost entirely in the bass register.

Putting this new Roderick Williams recording immediately up against the composer and Fischer-Dieskau is like going from hymns ancient to hymns modern. Williams finds an ideal emotional stance – involved, totally word-conscious but never melodramatic. Fischer-Dieskau, perhaps because for all his intelligence he is not English, is always interpreting, falling on words to sell emotional points and colours in a way that often feels de trop for both Blake and Britten. There may be a thrilling live performance tucked away in an archive but, as a recorded recital, Williams – and Burnside, who is similarly colourful but keeps an interpretative distance from pumping up the text – have created an outstanding achievement, one to set alongside the Gerald Finley/Julius Drake disc. Their remaining items, including Tit for Tat – Britten’s ‘reissue’ of early 1929-31 Walter de la Mare settings – shine in a similar way. The Potton Hall recording is clean and clear with excellent instrument/voice balance.