The renewal of interest in Ned Rorem’s vocal music – more than 300 solo songs and numerous song-cycles – continues. There is very little duplication between Laura Aikin’s recital and those of Susan Graham (Erato, 5/00) and Carole Farley (Naxos, 1/02). All three include the early Alleluia from 1948, and Aikin and Graham sing the setting of Ronsard’s Ode Je te salue heureuse Paix. Since Rorem often favours the mezzo voice, it is a surprise to find him in the high soprano stratosphere.

Jack l’éventreur (‘Jack the Ripper’) has lots of odd imagery: the murderer is dressed in tweed, with a rose between his teeth. The accompaniment suggests a steady pace, but the vocal line ranges freely. The Six Songs for High Voice, scored originally for orchestra, is here arranged for piano; the poems are by Dryden and Browning, at first sight an odd pairing. Aikin relishes the coloratura flourishes, but like all high sopranos is not always able to get the words across, though Rorem gallantly comments ‘The words float around up there like silver threads… You can’t possibly understand (them), but in this case I’m to blame, not the singer’.

The Wallace Stevens settings, for voice, piano and cello, are linked by two instrumental solos, accentuating the sense of a journey through experience, a growth of feeling and understanding. There are images of nature, sleep, the river and, finally, ‘A clear day and no memories’. In Ariel, on poems by Sylvia Plath, the clarinet takes over as a third voice. Four short poems, ‘Words’, ‘Poppies in July’, ‘The Hanging Man’, and ‘Poppies in October’, act as a sort of prelude to the long ‘Lady Lazarus’, with its horrific images and operatic ending (‘Out of the ash I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air’). Nicola Jürgensen provides a spectacular clarinet obbligato to the slightly jazzy settings and here Aikin’s words are splendidly clear.

Donald Sulzen’s accompaniments accentuate Rorem’s sometimes severe, sometimes complex keyboard writing. Aikin, whose repertory runs from Queen of the Night to Lulu, is a singer to watch, and this is a major addition to the discography.