This fascinating collection focuses on the two American poets set (probably) more often than any others, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. Ironically, however, it opens with Emerson, set by Lori Laitman (b1955) in ‘Beauty’ (2018), a duet for soprano and baritone accompanied by cello and piano. Laitman is a distinguished composer of vocal music (including opera) and ‘Beauty’ as well as her charming trio of Dickinson settings for soprano and piano, One Bee and Revery (2003), showcase her gift for lyricism. This is music of no great depth but accomplished nonetheless, albeit overshadowed by the other Dickinson settings here, Scott Gendel’s six fine, brief settings for soprano, cello and piano To Keep the Dark Away (2017) – in which the composer replaces Lara Bolton at the piano – and Previn’s Three Dickinson Songs (1999), as splendid an example of word-setting as the title is mundane. Jamie-Rose Guarrine sings these sets very prettily indeed.

The doyen of modern American art song is, of course, Ned Rorem (b1923), represented here by Three Calamus Poems for baritone and piano (1982), settings of Whitman that conclude wryly with ‘To a Common Prostitute’. The Whitman settings on the disc are all sung by the bass-baritone Seth Keeton. He sounds at home in Rorem’s multi-layered sound world, less so in the more declamatory I Was There (1988) by Lee Hoiby (1926-2011), audibly straining in the final pair, ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ and ‘Joy, Shipmate, Joy!’, and in the longest track, the scena for baritone, cello and piano On the Beach at Night (2017) by Daron Hagen (b1961). Nonetheless, this is still – overall – a nicely performed album, with some strong accompaniment by cellist Karl Knapp and pianist Lara Bolton. Navona’s sound is a little close and airless, but clear.