On track: Low and sensual art songs enchant

Barbara Bonney's collection of English and American art songs, My Name is Barbara, is one of four releases launching a new label, Onyx Records - a brave venture in these perilous times.

This American soprano is a media-friendly chanteuse and hip, too, titling her album with a nod to La Streisand. Bonney admits to Julie Andrews and The Sound of Music as major inspirations; she gives masterclasses to amateurs and happily presides over their question sessions like a musical Agony Aunt.

And when she's not on the high Cs, you might find her on the golf course with baritone buddies such as Thomas Hampson and Bryn Terfel.

There's certainly little to fault with her song selection on the new CD, with Quilter and Britten from one side of the Atlantic and Griffes, Barber, Bernstein and Copland from the other. And, with Malcolm Martineau at the piano, who could ask for anything more?

Leaving aside Bernstein's I Hate Music, five songs for kids which work best live and demand a nimbler voice, Bonney sings with authority.

How expertly one is wooed by the utter relaxation of the opening Weep You No More. A few songs on, an eyebrow may rise when Damask Roses becomes a trouser art song. Skip another track and one reaches for the booklet to decipher the first word of Brown Is My Love.

It's no secret that sopranos can do the darnedest job of getting words across, with Dawn Upshaw being a magnificent exception. The great Schwarzkopf stressed this in a Southbank documentary back in the 1980s, and Bonney is best when she's mid-range with low to medium projection.

Still, there is much to cherish in a collection that gathers together such fascinating repertoire. Charles Griffes' Fiona Macleod settings allow Bonney to exploit low, sensual registers, especially in The Rose of the Night, and the florid writing of Britten's To This Island is nailed with the determination evident in the cover portrait of the singer.

If the magic of the art song lies in that special communication between singer and accompanist, Bonney and Martineau are a simpatico team and this CD could well give you 62 minutes of enchantment.

* Barbara Bonney, My Name is Barbara (Onyx ONYX 4003, through Ode Records)