That the album bears the very inviting title ‘Perfum’e I can well understand. The songs collected on this CD are set to French poems from the second half of the nineteenth century and they have a special sexual appeal to the listener.

Everything about this CD is beautiful. Whether it is Maurice Ravel’s mysterious cycle ‘Sheherezade’ or Benjamin Britten’s unknown work which he wrote as a fifteen-year-old youth; they leave you stunned and feeling a bit intoxicated. Even Henri Duparc’s over-familiar ‘L’Invitation au voyage’ sounds like never before. Mysterious and unearthly beautiful.

But I was most moved and touched by Charles Koechlin’s ‘Épiphanie’. The song itself is already a beautiful gem, but in Christiane Karg’s rendition (and don’t forget about the orchestra!) it becomes like a painting overshadowed by a golden sheen.

Karg has a very suitable voice for the songs she performs: light, pure and silvery. Her interpretation is graceful and elegant, oscillating between the pastel tones of impressionism and the dark colours of symbolism. Just like the poems she sings. That it also sounds stylised at the same time adds to the mystery of ‘ womanhood’. She could be Melisande. Or even Sheherezade.

The young German conductor David Akham is a graceful partner to her, conducting as if he has an entire poetry album stored in his baton. What a great CD!