Bernarda Fink’s strong, flexible voice is well matched to all that Ravel asks of her, from the lively snapshots of the Greek folksongs to the long, languorous lines of Shéhérazade. For all the sensuous, not to say sensual, quality of “Asie” (the booklet picture is Ingres’s La grande odalisque), the song needs great precision and control, especially if it is to ride easily upon Ravel’s ornate orchestration. This is sometimes a little heavy here, at times even suggesting Wagner (something that would not have displeased the poems’ author, who designated himself “Tristan Klingsor”). Nevertheless, a subtler response to detail is possible without losing the richness. “La flûte enchantée” lies beautifully on Fink’s voice. She is elegantly seductive (if to no avail) in the final song, “L’indifférent”, as the somewhat effeminate young man drifts languidly past her door.

Berlioz’s songs come off rather less well. In part, this is because his wonderful orchestral detail is sometimes not clear enough, and so does not allow Fink’s voice to become part of the orchestration. But also, she seems less happy with some of them than with Ravel. The delightful “Villanelle” (one of the set she transposes down) is taken too fast for its gaiety and wit, and she fights shy of some of Berlioz’s admittedly demanding markings, as when he asks for ppp sotto voce ed estinto in “Absence”. But as a whole this song, as well as “Sur les lagunes”, comes off well, better than a curiously plain performance of “Le spectre de la rose”. There are too many other outstanding recordings of the cycle for this to be first choice. In the booklet, the poems have found a distinguished translator in Charles Johnston.