Once upon a time crossover for “classical” singers consisted of the odd excursion into Broadway showtunes. Now a year that’s already seen Lisa Milne wooing the Orkney Festival with authentic recreations of Janis Joplin yields a full-on rock concert of own-written material (with some help from Elizabethan lyricists – seriously) from Scholl and fellow countertenor Orlando, aka Roland Kunz.

The songs are classy, real pop songs – Scholl’s numbers moody and introspective, Orlando’s providing the up-tempo big finishes. The arrangements are in the Jimmy Webb class. The performances are well routined, committed and together, with a sharp balance between vocals, group and orchestra. But the disc’s main attraction lies in the other-worldly aura that countertenor voices lend to music like this – boys, sounding like girls, singing love songs about girls (I presume), enunciating the words like the greatest poetry. I’ve been trying not to use the word “camp”, but it’s definitely in the mix somewhere.

It’s apt that the disc was recorded “live” in Furth, the riverside town outside Nuremburg from which Wagner dispatched his flirtatious girls to join the Mastersingers’ ceremony. Unless you’re completely allergic to lush orchestral Euro-pop and middle-of-the-Autobahn-bahn-bahn music, the sheer beauty of the pair’s singing over arrangements loaded with melodic hooks becomes infuriatingly catchy, lustrous and compelling. I expect soon to hear the results piped into every Christmas market, service station and airline throughout Europe.