David Daniels has been wandering farther and farther from the Baroque fare that is the heart of a countertenor’s repertoire. His previous song recital album, ‘Serenade’ (5/00), placed songs by Beethoven, Schubert, Vaughan Williams and Poulenc alongside those of Cesti, Purcell and Gluck. On this new recital disc, Daniels adds songs from the American musical theatre to the mix; and instead of relegating the ‘popular’ numbers to the end, as is usually done, Daniels places them prominently at the beginning. It is doubly surprising to find such songs on a programme with guitar accompaniment.

A countertenor singing Broadway tunes? Perhaps this might not be so daring these days, especially since Daniels is not one of those singers who aims for authenticity in popular music. (What, I wonder, is the sound of a countertenor belting?) He lavishes the same tightly bound legato and careful dynamic shading on John Kander’s A Quiet Thing (originally written for Liza Minnelli) and Alec Wilder’s Blackberry Winter as he does on three Bellini songs. Which is not to suggest that he is stylistically insensitive. Those Bellini songs are suffused with a lilting sweetness, for example, and Daniels imaginatively differentiates between the sensuous heat of a set of Renaissance Spanish canciones and the contemplative intensity of a pair of Dowland songs. Stylistic distinction is also made through differences in tone colour. In Stephen Foster’s Beautiful Dreamer, his bright sound projects the ardour of a starry-eyed youth, while in the folk song Shenandoah he darkens his voice to suggest an adult experiencing the pleasurable pain of nostalgic longing. Guitarist Craig Ogden is a similarly sensitive interpreter, giving the Renaissance songs and the Dowland a drier and more delicate, lute-like pluck and shaping the Bellini accompaniments with fluid elegance.

Half of the songs were recorded at the Academy of Arts & Letters in New York and half at the Arsenal de Metz in France, yet Virgin’s engineers have created a fairly consistent acoustic of warm coziness. The intimate atmosphere helps do away with the usual air of tuxedoed formality and offers the benefit of hearing Daniels’ pure-toned and occasionally penetrating voice in thrillingly close proximity.