Norah Amsellem is fortunate in having Dalton Baldwin as her accompanist here. The late Gérard Souzay, Baldwin’s longtime collaborator, penned a dedication, reproduced in the booklet: ‘Chère Norah, la mélodie française vous attendait! Vous avez du genie.’

Such an extravagant epithet takes a lot of living up to, and the selection of songs by Debussy and Duparc seems over-ambitious. Amsellem has an impressive repertory in Mozart, Verdi and Puccini, but the generous vibrato in the opening Debussy songs, Romance and Apparition, seems too operatic. These need a more conversational way with the words; listen to Pierrette Alarie to hear how charming they can be. The Duparc songs, too, are interpretative hurdles, and one waits in vain for some insight into, for instance, Au pays où se fait la guerre.

The more frivolous texts by Louise de Vilmorin in Poulenc’s Fiançailles pour rire and Trois Métamorphoses provide a happier platform for Amsellem’s undoubted ability. The booklet declaims ‘a star is born’, and underneath the word ‘zoom’ printed 14 times. ‘Expliquez-moi,’ as Gertrude Stein used to say.