The centrepiece here is Lili Boulanger’s emotionally turbulent 13-song cycle Clairières dans le ciel (‘Clearings in the sky’, 1914) on poems by Francis Jammes. It’s a work rarely taken up by female singers. Indeed, the only other account I’ve heard is by Karin Ott and Jean Lemaire (Pan Classics), a relatively wan interpretation compared with this dramatically variegated new one. Other than a few passages marked ‘with emotion’ or ‘with profound emotion’ where I felt Dain was just slightly too reserved, she and Armstrong plumb the music’s considerable depths quite thoroughly. Listen to ‘Si tout ceci n’est qu’un pauvre rêve’ (‘If this is all just a poor dream’), for example, with its allusions to Wagner’s Tristan, in which both singer and pianist commit fully to its ‘dark madness’, or to how delicately they handle the opening of ‘Les lilas qui avaient fleuri’ (‘The lilacs that flowered last year’) so the various lines appear to be weightless. In her extensive and thoughtful booklet note, Dain describes the long final song as resembling ‘an operatic mad scene in its portrayal of full-blown psychological disintegration’, and in performance, she and Armstrong make the most of the music’s wild mood swings.

The remainder of the programme alternates works by the three composers, and the juxtapositions created provide plenty of food for thought. The opening two numbers, for instance, Boulanger’s Fauréan ‘Attente’ and Szymanowski’s folk-like ‘Wysła burzycka’ (‘The Stormy Storm’) were both composed in 1911. Bacewicz’s ‘Mamidło’ (‘Mirage’, the first of her three songs on 10th-century Arabic poems) is heard alongside Szymanowski’s ‘Die brennenden Tulpen’ (from his first Hafis set), and we’re also given highly distinct, back-to-back settings of the same text: Bacewicz’s ‘Rozstanie’ (‘Parting’) and Szymanowski’s ‘Das letzte Lied’. Bacewicz’s style is very much her own, of course, but her setting of Tagore’s ‘Mów do mnie, o miły’ (‘Speak to me, my lovely’) seems to pay a huge debt to her compatriot’s music. This is followed by an atmospheric reading of Szymanowski’s ‘Das Grab des Hafis’, where Armstrong ably demonstrates his abilities as a colourist.

Dain’s voice is notable for its purity of tone, and her ability to sustain a long melodic line pays huge dividends throughout this recital. The recording (from the Kleine Zaal in Eindhoven’s Muziekgebouw) flatters both singer and pianist. I was slightly disconcerted by the sudden microphone shift for Armstrong’s two solo pieces (Boulanger’s ‘D’un vieux jardin’ and ‘D’un jardin clair’), but it’s easily forgiven. There’s another mike shift for the final number, a fragment from one of Boulanger’s sketchbooks where she set her own text about her illness and frailties. Here the close microphone placement is welcome as Dain sings it as if to herself alone, almost in a whisper at times. The effect is absolutely heart-rending.