There is a vast gulf between the bibulous bravado of the “Chanson à boire” that Ravel included in his Don Quichotte à Dulcinée songs and the bleak, dark despair of his Verlaine setting “Un Grand sommeil noir”. Placing them next to one another in this fine selection of over two dozen songs emphasises the broad expressive range that Ravel was able to embrace. It also throws into focus the way that Gerald Finley and Julius Drake can so evocatively tap their emotional substance. These exquisitely crafted miniatures, whether in the folk-inspired Chants populaires and Cinq mélodies populaires grecques or in the tender “Noëls des jouets” to a text of Ravel’s own, show his creative fastidiousness in a consistently positive light: the mood might be robust or rarefied, but Ravel’s sense of colour and atmosphere is infallible. The imagery of the Histoires naturelles, for example, testifies to Ravel’s intuitive response to poetry and to his precise placing of the tonal brushstrokes. In this respect, the piano is an essential collaborator, etching in the background for the gliding grace of the swan or the chirping of the cricket. Drake draws the ear ineluctably into Ravel’s imaginative world, as he does elsewhere in the cool restraint of “Ronsard à son âme” or the turbulence and shifting currents of “Les grands vents venus d’outremer”. Finley’s mellifluous, malleable baritone is similarly an ideal match for this repertoire, with lines eloquently floated, nuances subtly voiced and character sensitively defined. This is a beguiling programme, beautifully performed.