Fatma Said might look out alone from the cover of her new album, ‘Lieder’, but as a quick look through the line-up – and a read of her own booklet note – reveals, this is all about musical collaboration with an array of artists, who ‘are friends every bit as much as colleagues’. And, especially given the programming of her first two Warner albums, it might come as a surprise also to read that lieder are the Egyptian singer’s first love.

But she’s a natural in the repertoire, with impeccable German (picked up in German kindergarten and school in Cairo and then from living in Berlin for her studies) and an instinctive knack for the idiom. I defy anyone not to be drawn in immediately to the delicate, slightly tremulous ‘Ständchen’ that opens the album, or to be whisked straight into the Alpine valley of an atmospheric ‘Der Hirt auf dem Felsen’ – with Sabine Meyer, no less, as the superb clarinettist. For the D920 ‘Ständchen’ that follows she gets outstanding support from men of Walhalla zum Seidlwirt. The album certainly kicks off winningly.

Another highlight comes in the shape of Brahms’s Ophelia Lieder, in Aribert Reimann’s beautiful, haunting arrangement, for which Said is joined by the superb Quatuor Arod – Jordan Victoria’s way with the uncanny, high violin lines will send a shiver down your spine. Huw Montague Rendall is a high-class partner for four duets (one each by the Mendelssohn brother and sister, a couple by Schumann) which are a delight – although does the recording set Montague Rendall a bit far back?

I was a little less convinced by the harp arrangements of four other Brahms songs; Anneleen Lenaerts’s playing can’t be faulted, but the songs themselves are made to feel a little insubstantial. Occasionally, too, I wish for a little more body, a little more power in Said’s timbre, unfailingly beautiful though it is. And while there’s no doubting her professed commitment to enlivening the words – I love her vivid way with Mendelssohn’s ‘Hexenlied’ – some moments in ‘Der Zwerg’ come a little close to Weimar cabaret for me.

Last but by no means least, I have nothing but praise for Malcolm Martineau and Joseph Middleton – characteristically outstanding at the piano. They, and Said’s other musical friends, help make this beautifully recorded album a refreshing and engaging listen. Recommended.