CD: Brahms/ Dvorak/ Fanny Mendelssohn/ Felix Mendelssohn/ Schumann: Duets

Dvorak's Moravian Songs have often been performed as party pieces by duetting divas, though this disc from Barbara Bonney and Angelika Kirchschlager places them in the context of a thoughtful examination of the duet as an extension of both lieder-writing and chamber music. The material is variable. Mendelssohn's duets are slight, and are eclipsed by those of his sister Fanny - a remarkably agonised series of Heine settings that uses the same poems as Schumann's Dichterliebe. Schumann's own duets are by turns nostalgic and passionate, Brahms' are under-represented and Bonney is taxed by the soprano lines of those included. Elsewhere, however, her voice blends with Kirchschlager's creamy mezzo and Malcolm Martineau is a wonderfully sensitive accompanist.