This spin-off from the long-running BBC Radio 3 series Voices has a lot going for it, and it would be marvellous if more of the less-than-mainstream repertory that the channel promotes were to find its way onto CD so speedily – especially when the composer who features is one who, like Judith Weir, brings out the very best in most performers.

This survey of Weir’s vocal music is dominated by Susan Bickley’s perfectly judged performances of five pieces, ranging from a deliciously forthright King Harald’s Saga (1979) to the sonorous cycle written for Alice Coote, The Voice of Desire (2003). Here, as in the tricky Songs from the Exotic (1987), Ian Burnside is an ideally responsive partner. As for the Saga: even if you have the fine Albany version (8/06), you need this one too.

I don’t warm to every instance of folklike tunes set against rather repetitive and at times downright deconstructive accompanimental patterns, and Andrew Kennedy doesn’t seem completely at ease with the Caledonian accent required for Scotch Minstrelsy. Nor was it a good idea to (re)set the text of Schubert’s Ständchen to the kind of tune one of his German predecessors like Reichardt or Zumsteeg might have dreamed up, then bringing out in the accompaniment those birdsong effects which Schubert himself shunned. But these are minor quibbles, and the attractions of the disc are reinforced as Ailish Tynan brings vivid character and great vocal sophistication to the operatic aspirations of A Spanish Liederbooklet. Incidentally, you’ll look in vain in the booklet for an indication of who, exactly, sings what.