Messiaen’s song-cycle Poèmes pour Mi and his first wife Claire Delbos’s L’âme en bourgeon were premiered in the same Paris concert in 1937. Reuniting these works on disc for the first time is the fascinating premise for this recording by the Norwegian soprano Liv Elise Nordskog and pianist Signe Bakke.

The connections between the cycles go further: Delbos sets a collection of poems by Cécile Sauvage – Messiaen’s mother – written while she was pregnant with her son. Delbos’s setting was composed while she herself was pregnant with her own child, at the same time as Messiaen was writing the song-cycle inspired by his wife and given her own pet-name of ‘Mi’.

Biographically this makes for beautiful programming but musically it’s also a fascinating pairing. The textural drama of Messiaen’s cycle – by turns wilfully ugly (‘Epouvante’) and delicately inscrutable (‘Ta voix’) give way to the melodic unfolding of Delbos’s songs – sustained and lyrical, even in their moments of extremity.

Debilitating mental illness cut short Delbos’s career as a composer and L’âme en bourgeon represents a major work in a very small oeuvre. The musical voice here, however, is already distinctive – harmonically freer than Messiaen’s but sharing a recognisably similar aesthetic.

Technically the Messiaen is far more challenging, demanding extremes of range and vocal colour from the singer and significant virtuosity from the pianist. Both Nordskog and Bakke give refined, idiomatic performances, finding the intimacy if not always the emotional excess of these songs. Just occasionally though, Nordskog betrays the difficulty of what she is doing, hesitating on the edge of the music’s precipices and holding back in tone colour or muscular conviction.

A booklet essay (translated into English) offers a close reading of these rarely heard works, though non-Norwegian speakers should note that the poems only appear in French and Norwegian.