With her rich tone that records as charismatically as Christa Ludwig’s, Catriona Morison achieves inviting surface lustre in this debut recital disc but, too often, doesn’t go beyond that. Phrase after phrase goes by without linguistic heat or strong emotional point of view when suddenly Morison catches fire in ways that suggest a consistently high level of artistry might be hers in years to come.

Is she a case of too many opportunities too soon? The Scottish-German mezzo-soprano won the 2017 main prize and Song Prize of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, and in 2019 made her successful Proms debut with Elgar’s Sea Pictures. Revisiting that performance now, one hears passages that are unresponsive to the words in ways that one usually associates with a
non-native English speaker.

The new album starts with German-language Grieg songs in a set that contains the most audience-charmers in this adventurously programmed disc. She gives each song an individual sound world, though without much specific linguistic colouring. One exception is ‘Ein Traum’: when Morison’s inviting warmth of tone is supported by irresistible emotional engagement, that performance, alone, is almost worth the price of the recording.

Schumann’s Op 90, however, is a confounding choice. Though recognised by scholars for its harmonic innovations, the cycle feels fragile and unfinished, with dated texts requiring the cultural depth and stylistic wiles of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (DG). More involving is Morison’s Brahms set, which shows the composer at his most intimate, tapping into an underlying melancholy in her voice.

The album takes its name from one of the songs by the little-known Josephine Lang (1815-1880), who was championed by composers in high places, had intermittent success in her own lifetime and is only now being discovered in our time. Though she hails from the era of Mendelssohn, Lang has a less contained, more Schumannesque manner that is used with such unfiltered conviction you would think she invented this harmonic world. Her balance of words and musical expression is effortless; her use of form is distinctively seamless. Expressive mileage that Lang draws from repeated words never feels laboured.

I particularly love Lang’s discreet humour in ‘Die Schwalben’, with words by Christoph August Tiedge that seem to be typical nature-painting about swallows until the poem’s protagonist admits she really can’t stand the birds. All parties concerned – Morison, pianist Malcolm Martineau and the composer – are at their best amid the lyrical flow and emotional depths of ‘Abschied’. Morison is also heard championing a rather different female composer, Pauline Viardot, on Linn’s live Edinburgh International Festival Highlights (CKD671). Good performances. Too bad they aren’t bonus tracks on this recital disc.