On track: Duo rise to challenges of Liszt lieder

Keith Lewis is one of our most distinguished musical sons and, for a tenor of his stature, woefully under-represented in CD catalogues.

His new Trust recording of Liszt lieder, with pianist David Harper, beautifully recorded in London's Henry Wood Hall, is especially welcome.

Despite the championing of Janet Baker, Thomas Quasthoff and Barbara Bonney, Liszt's songs have had a grudging acceptance from audiences and performers. Their reception with singers is hardly surprising when these 75 lieder present such a challenging range of genres and styles.

Lewis is just the man for the job. With David Harper brewing up some impressive Alpine storms behind him, the tenor catches the full-on theatricality of three settings from Schiller's William Tell.

When things calm down, he enchants us totally with the heady lyricism of Kling leise, mein Lied, not to mention that final ascent to tenor heaven on Oh! Quand je dors.

Songs such as Ihr Auge, with its subtle weaving of voice and piano, reveal two artists in rare sympathy with one another.

With Liszt penning as many as four different versions of some songs, Lewis' choices are significant. For Der du von dem Himmel bist, he thrills us with the rather cheesy first setting, complete with inappropriately heroic outburst at the words "sweet peace".

To have followed this by Liszt's final epigrammatic setting would have been a fascinating piece of programming.

When baritone Thomas Quasthoff recorded Three Sonnets of Petrarch a few years ago, he surprised many by choosing Liszt's earlier tenor version, which offers more of an emotional workout, with some particularly lusty climaxes.

So, too, does Lewis, who, despite an occasional sense of strain, invests them with a telling intensity. His Benedetto sia l'giorno catches the vulnerability of the poet as the cosmopolitan Liszt spins Schubertian harmonies under lines that could have slipped from a Bellini aria.

Spend five minutes with Uber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh, with that extraordinary premonition of Parsifal in its opening bars, and you will be captivated.

Listen to the whole 66 minutes of the album and you will simply want to play it again ... and again.

* Franz Liszt Songs with Keith Lewis and David Harper (Trust Records TRI 3002)