Malcolm Martineau has been a constant in this Signum series of Poulenc songs and in this fourth volume his piano-playing continues to lend a keen and characterful edge to the various musical pictures that Poulenc creates, be it humorous or melancholy in Le bestiaire or hauntingly sensuous in some of the Cinq Poèmes de Paul Eluard. The programme has been thoughtfully chosen here to provide just such contrasts between the perky Poulenc and the one who could cosset himself in his luxuriantly purple harmonies.

The range of voices and the different vocal timbres have likewise been shrewdly deployed. In Le bestiaire the baritone Thomas Oliemans finds ear-catching character for the various distinguishing features of dromedary, flea and Tibetan goat and, in the half-dozen songs of the Chansons villageoises, a blend of vivacious élan and lyrical allure together with that almost Mussorgskian realism that colours ‘Le mendiant’. To the tenor John Mark Ainsley fall the five Eluard settings, which he interprets tellingly with a mix of mesmerising restraint and fierce projection in the opening song, ‘Peut-il se reposer celui qui dort’, and throughout finds the nub of the diverse sentiments that the set conveys. The rhythmic teases of the Poèmes de Ronsard are cunningly negotiated by Martineau and the baritone William Dazeley. The soprano Magdalena Molendowska brings piquant tone, sparkle and spirit to the Huit Chansons polonaises, and Sarah Fox is the delightful protagonist of both the Cinq Poèmes de Max Jacob and the sultry, saucy ‘Dame de Monte Carlo’.