A hearty welcome to this exceptionally stimulating programme, devised – and essayed with penetrating insight – by Robin Tritschler. With his mellifluous tone, flawless technical prowess and impeccable diction, the Irish tenor covers himself in glory throughout. Indeed, his alliance with pianist Malcolm Martineau in Lennox Berkeley’s devastatingly personal Five Housman Songs operates at the highest level of intensity. Written in 1940 and initially inscribed to Peter Pears, these settings of lyrics with their themes of separation and rejection reflective of the English poet’s unrequited love for Moses Jackson (who eventually settled and raised a family in Canada) mirror Berkeley’s own deeply troubled mood and infatuation with Britten. ‘I’ll send you a copy of my Housman songs – perhaps Peter might sing them’, Berkeley wrote to Britten (then based in the USA – and already Pears’s partner) in a letter dated April 21, 1940. In the event, and perhaps hardly surprisingly, Pears sat on the manuscript until 1975; three years later, Ian and Jennifer Partridge gave the belated first performance for a broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Tritschler and Martineau likewise excel in the thrillingly ardent and wholly inspired Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo that Britten fashioned for Pears between March and October 1940, a performance of urgent expression, stylish individuality and articulate poise that manages to break free from what Tritschler describes in his intelligent and detailed booklet notes as ‘the “Pears sound”, which seems ingrained in the fabric of the music … I imagine Pears himself would prefer the singer to revel in the joy of their own voice and music-making’. These artists also prove most sympathetic advocates of both the Five Chinese Lyrics by the 19-year-old Arthur Oldham (1926-2003, a gifted pupil of Britten in the mid-1940s) and the comparably engaging Songs of the Zodiac by Geoffrey Bush (1920‑98), 12 pithy and witty settings of surrealist poems by David Gascoyne (1916-2001), premiered in March 1990 and inscribed to the memory of Britten and Pears.

Elsewhere, there’s a customarily stylish contribution from Sean Shibe in Berkeley’s Songs of the Half-Light, exquisitely wrought settings of five poems by Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) and tailor-made for Pears and Julian Bream (who gave the premiere at the 1965 Aldeburgh Festival). Last, and definitely not least, comes Richard Rodney Bennett’s deeply compassionate 1961 monologue ‘Tom O’Bedlam’s Song’, cellist Philip Higham teaming up with Tritschler for a riveting display. Throw in Signum’s exemplary production values and sound of exceptional realism, and you have a release that is guaranteed to provide lasting rewards.