First performed in 1946, Poulenc’s setting of Jean de Brunhoff’s children’s tale for narrator and piano has come to be regarded as one of his most perfect works, and it’s easy to see why. Biographers and critics have often pointed out that the story of Babar – the little elephant who loses his mother when young and longs for the forest of his childhood even as he grows up in the urban world of men – resonated deeply with the circumstances of Poulenc’s own childhood and youth. The score combines the idioms of popular music with a witty, slightly parodic use of dissonance that makes it captivating for children, but underlying it all is that bittersweet but refined sense of nostalgia, so typical of Poulenc, that can make it an extraordinarily moving experience for adults as well.

Miriam Margolyes is the latest in the remarkable line-up of actors and occasional singers – it includes Noël Coward and Barry Humphries in English, Pierre Bernac (for whom it was written) and Jeanne Moreau in French – to tackle it on disc, and her new recording with Simon Callaghan is both genuinely delightful and probes the work’s ambiguities in a beautifully understated way. She narrates it with admirable simplicity, without resorting to archness or affectation, but where she really scores high is the sense of wonder she brings to the tale she tells, which in itself is deeply affecting.

Callaghan, meanwhile, plays it extremely well, and is nicely alert to its grace, humour and emotional shifts without over-exaggerating the comedy or veering towards sentimentality. He has great fun with Poulenc’s excited depiction of Babar digging in the sand with a shell, and with the slightly delirious waltz to which he scoffs cake with his cousins Arthur and Céleste. But the passage in which Babar cries for his dead mother is really touching, and the closing nocturne is absolutely exquisite. It’s a lovely performance, and highly recommended if you want the work in English. Bernac and Graham Johnson (6/99 and now part of Hyperion’s survey of Poulenc’s complete songs) remain uniquely authoritative if you prefer the original French.