Jean-Marc Salzmann (baritone), Dearbhla Collins (piano)

Ravel's skill in matching melody to words is at its most eloquent in his settings of Jules Renard's Histoires Naturelles. These exquisite little caricatures of, in turn, a peacock, a cricket, a swan, a kingfisher and a guineahen are tenderly ironic, attributing to birds and insects human aspirations and human failings. Each is a little drama with little reversals of fortune and the singer must be able to act with his voice, without foregoing subtlety. Jean-Marc Salzmann has a voice that can range from the stridency of the peacock's cry to the confidential asides of the timid cricket, delivered in an almost speaking tone, and can also express the comic exaggerations of the guinea-hen's behaviour. His treatment of the texts was a constant delight and his gestures, which in another singer might have seemed excessive, arose naturally from the composer's approach.

For sheer voluptuousness it would be hard to beat the first and last songs of the three Chansons Medecasses, and the battle cry of Aona that opens the central song was declaimed so forcefully that it startled a proportion of the audience. Dearbhla Collins brought as much colour as possible to the piano reduction of the more familiar chamber ensemble.

Texts of these songs would have been particularly welcome as it was hard to follow the translations provided. The Five Greek Folksongs and the Don Quixote songs are so tuneful that the words are not so important, but Salzmann was just as careful to bring the words to life. Being French, he needed no special key to unlock the meanings - and when he sang "tous les plus braves", he meant just that and not, as the translation had it, "the faithful and pious people"!