Juliane Banse and András Schiff have been giving recitals together for several years, but this is their first recording. To juxtapose songs by Mozart and Debussy seems a little odd, and although there is clearly an intended programme here, something to do with breaking the rules in different ages, it makes for a rather lopsided effect.

Not even Lotte Lehmann – who wrote about them – nor Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, ever really made a feature of singing Debussy mélodies; indeed, I cannot think of any other German soprano who has ventured such a recital.

Banse and Schiff begin with five early Debussy songs. Beau soir, words by Paul Bourget, disappoints. Its final line, ‘Elle à la mer, nous au tombeau’, needs altogether more of a sense of sudden premonition. The earlier setting of Clair de lune, with its pretty accompaniment suits Banse better than the better-known one which completes the first set of Fêtes Galantes. Pierrot is not heard that often – the poem is a tribute to the great mime Deburau (hero of Carné’s film Les enfants du Paradis), and the little quote in the piano part from ‘Au clair de la lune’ makes this an attractive encore prospect.

Pantomime is by Verlaine, and serves as anintroduction to the other nine Verlaine/Debussy settings. Schiff makes the accompaniment in‘Fantoches’ from Fêtes Galantes just as it should be, with elegant humour and that hint of Spanish dance at the words ‘pirate espagnole’. Thesecond ‘Clair de lune’, with its wide range and demands for sudden pianissimi is one of the most difficult Debussy songs. Banse negotiates it with evenness of tone, but she smoothes out the words so much that it’s difficult to hear even such a familiar poem.

The first Mozart group opens with two settings of French texts. Antoine Houdar de la Motte’s Dans un bois solitaire, which has an almost operatic fast middle section, and Antoine Ferrand’s Oiseaux, si tous les ans, were composed by Mozart in Mannheimduring 1777-78 for the Wendling sisters, one of whom was the first Ilia in Idomeneo. When Banse shifts into German for Warnung, the difference is immediately apparent. Not only does one have more sense of her personality, but even without the printed words, I could hear most of the text quite clearly. Der Zauberer, urgent, and Das Veilchen, playful, both have the required charm.

Although there is a 28-page booklet which accompanies this CD, it does not containtexts or translations (these you have to look up on a website). There is, instead, an essay by Jacques Drillon, which compares Mozart with Debussy and which I found confusing inits wide-ranging imagery, especially in astatement about Debussy, who, it is asserted, ‘renounced saintliness for the sake ofhumanity (humanness?) in all its mostconfused, tangled and unsightly aspects.Few composers have done so with such courage: Janá?ek often, Monteverdisometimes, the rest never.’ The contrast is about the same in the second part of the CD: Ariettes oubliées have beautiful individual touches, the final three Mozart Lieder, including a deeply-felt Als Luise die Briefe, perhaps the best part of the recital. Mozart – ‘Ja’; Debussy – ‘Non’.