The central work in this Strauss programme, captured live at the Royal Festival Hall in good sound in 1986, is the Suite from Le bourgeois gentilhomme but the star attraction is without doubt Jessye Norman, at her magnificent prime at the time. The songs recorded here featured among the couplings on her classic Leipzig recording of the Four Last Songs (Philips, 10/83), and she recorded Salome complete in Dresden in 1990 (10/94); but what we have here can sound like a very different artist, especially in the Salome final scene.

Part of that is, of course, down to the soprano’s partnership with Klaus Tennstedt. After a fascinating Dance of the Seven Veils – riotous at start and finish but carefully, patiently musical in between – the conductor unleashes a swirling orchestral maelstrom and the soprano dives straight in. While in her studio Salome Norman is luxurious but somewhat aloof, here she is simply compelling, not just in terms of the voice – rich, powerful and rewarding – but in a dramatic performance that veers dizzyingly from tenderness to unrighteous anger and desire, which savours the words and takes its time.

She’s particularly superb at the start of the final section (from 0'33" on track 14), where she perfectly conveys the pallid quality asked for in the score, with the muted violins interjecting as if still recovering from the shock of what they’ve just witnessed. She then moves on to present a magnificent final climax, backed to the hilt by the LPO. It’s rightly greeted with an ecstatic response from the audience – thrilling, visceral stuff.

The songs capture the soprano in more restrained form, of course, with many similarities in terms of vocal allure and approach to the studio performances with Masur. Here too, though, the performances strike me as more direct, more engaged, serving truth as well as sheer vocal beauty. Listen, as just one example, to the way she adds a sensual turn to ‘Träume’ at the start of the second verse (at 1'58") of ‘Wiegenlied’, or to the intensified dramatic tension of ‘Ruhe, meine Seele’.

The Bourgeois gentilhomme Suite is given a fine, characterful performance, with good playing in particular from the LPO’s leader, even if the pianist was clearly having a bit of an off-night in ‘The Fencing Master’. But it’s the songs and, especially, the Salome that make this recording an essential listen, and a compelling reminder of a great singer at her dramatic best.