It is curious to think that Paul Hindemith and Ernesto Lecuona were almost exact contemporaries, born a couple of months apart in 1895 and dying within five weeks of each other at the end of 1963. Yet despite this closeness in time their music had no real common ground. Hindemith was no mean song-writer, though not especially prolific, unlike the Cuban Lecuona for whom song was a paramount form of expression: he wrote around 400 of them.

For this recording Carole Farley undertook – according to José Serebrier’s perfunctory booklet note – a protracted detective hunt through libraries, publishers, basements and packing cases to arrive at her selection of 25 love songs. Hers is a fine and varied choice, highlighting Lecuona’s undeniable gifts as a melodist and word-setter, ranging between the overtly romantic – as in the opening Siempre en mi corazón (‘Always in my heart’) and Primavera de illusion (‘Spring of Illusion’) – to fast and lively songs such as Que risa me da (‘Oh, what a laugh’) and Conga Cuba. In between these are more lilting songs such as Como presiento (‘The feeling I have’) and Amor tardio (‘Belated love’), directly Latin numbers such as Allá en la sierra (‘High in the Sierra’) and the dramatic, scena-like Canción del amor triste.

Farley sings all the songs with great finesse and warmth of feeling. Very occasionally, as in Se abrieron las flores (‘The flowers opened’), her vibrato does not suit Lecuona’s clean lines. She is accompanied with no little sympathy by the excellent John Constable whose playing is a model of precision yet catches that feeling of improvisation that is an essential part of these songs. The recording is wonderfully pure and clear.