Stéphanie d’Oustrac is not the singer to paint these songs in shades of pastel. Although she first made her name as a Baroque specialist, she combines a warm, flavoursome mezzo with a fiery dramatic temperament. She can spin a pure, rapt line, as in “Der erste Kuss”. But to each of these songs, even the most guileless, she brings an intense personal involvement. D’Oustrac suggests more than a hint of erotic passion beneath the decorous sentiments of “A Pastoral Song” (her English accent is near-perfect) and avows her eternal love in “Fidelity” with a burning conviction I have never heard equalled. She “sells” the two risqué songs (“Eine sehr gewöhnliche Geschichte” and “Die zu späte Ankunft der Mutter”) gleefully, with sly, conspiratorial timing, though some may feel that the occasional naturalistic effects – little gusts of laughter, a mock-indignant scream of protest – are over the top. The dramatic cantata Arianna a Naxos makes a splendid climax, with D’Oustrac living intensely each phase of the Minoan princess’s fluctuating emotions, from her voluptuous awakening to her mingled yearning and outrage in the tremendous final F minor aria. Throughout she is vividly responsive to the meaning of the Italian text and to harmonic colour.

Aline Zylberajch contributes crucially to the recital’s success with her rhythmic acuity, evenness of touch and lively sense of character. She colludes wittily with the voice in the two salacious songs, while the extreme contrasts in timbre between the fortepiano’s silvery treble and hollow, percussive bass are particularly effective in the storm-swept opening of “Fidelity”.