Album: Grenados/Guridi etc, Canciones Españolas – Schwartz/Martineau (Hyperion)

Sharpness and sweetness combine attractively in Sylvia Schwartz's voice.

The mixture is perfect for this programme of Spanish songs, some barely a minute long, all beautifully characterised by the soprano and her accompanist Malcolm Martineau. The heroines here work with their hands, dreaming of gentle ploughmen or moonlit assassins, while other songs have a more luxurious, northern European sound, a trend continued in Toldra's dreamy "Maig".