So often after a Cardiff Singer of the World competition on television, people go around feigning wide-eyed disbelief: ‘Did you agree with the verdict? I didn’t.’ There may have been some such in 2003, but if so I didn’t meet them. There seemed to be general agreement that the resourceful Finnish baritone had won fairly and decisively. Here is his first solo recital on CD, showing him in a wide and testing repertoire. He ranges from the gentle meditations of Wolfram in Tannhäuser to the fierce declamation of Verdi’s Ford in Falstaff, taking in, with the aria from La traviata, an example of what is generally thought of as bel canto writing, and, in Valentin’s solo from Faust, the high-lying baritone tessitura of the French school.

It’s a fine voice, with plenty of body and well-produced, ringing top notes. He can be incisive and energetic in declamation, broadly phrased and capable of a satisfying smoothness in lyrical passages. On this showing, two limitations prompt a slightly cautious response. I hear his notes as steady compared with many other baritones but not with the firmest among them, and, although he is hardly ever dull or inexpressive, he doesn’t quite make of his chosen solos a newly living experience. Still, this is a notable debut disc, with a happily varied programme: a change, for example, to find the aria from Puccini’s Edgar and two unusual versions of what may look like familiar arias by Mozart.