It’s easy to divide the evolution of Western music into arbitrary historical periods, but more useful to find links between kindred spirits that reach across the centuries. That’s the message of Christine Schäfer’s disc that juxtaposes songs by Henry Purcell and George Crumb. If a meeting of minds between England’s first great composer and one of America’s most idiosyncratic experimental voices at first seems an unlikely gambit, then Schäfer reaches inside this material to uncover connections that are wholly convincing. A melancholy lyricism haunts both composers, while a malleable approach to rhythm helps shake off the same old same old melodic frames.

The first part of the disc intersperses Crumb’s moderately Coplandesque Three Early Songs (1947) with Purcell favourites like “Sweeter than Roses” and “Music for a While”. The sovereign authority of Schäfer’s voice and the intensity of her presence makes for a seamless narrative, and the clarity of her diction and innate dramatic sensibility revitalise the Purcell works. The disc ends with a complete performance of Crumb’s Walt Whitman-inspired Apparition – Elegiac Songs and Vocalises (1979). The extended piano techniques Crumb deploys – the first section has eerie strumming as the inside of the piano becomes a mutant guitar – and his deconstruction of Whitman texts into onomatopoeic sounds builds bridges between music and text rather than offering a “setting” in the traditional sense. Readings from Shakespeare sonnets are placed between the Crumb and Purcell songs but have been given an overlay of electronic distortion – a redundant and puzzling addition to an otherwise intellectually astute and flawlessly performed disc.

The 10th volume of Bridge’s complete Crumb edition documents two recent scores, Unto the Hills (2002) and The River of Life (2003). The more recent work is built around re-imaginings of iconic Americana like “Amazing Grace” and “Give me that old-time religion”, which Crumb has folded into an atmospheric stream of consciousness. Unto the Hills applies that same principle to Appalachian folksongs and, while both works are sincerely felt, the sense that Crumb is using obvious hooks around which to build ambient soundscapes is difficult to avoid.