Like a rugby match, a Bryn Terfel recital is a game of two halves – the first some serious Lieder, the second lighter fare usually sprinkled with Welsh showmanship. It makes for a satisfying après ski concert experience as the audience at the 2011 Verbier Festival in Switzerland discovered.

Bryn Terfel

The star baritone, joined by compatriot Llŷr Williams – “two Welshmen on stage for the first time at Verbier”, Terfel boasted – was in fine voice giving a poetic reading of Robert Schumann’s Liederkreis after a wonderful opener in Franz Schubert’s Liebesbotschaft from the Schwanengesang cycle. The pair have never performed before but there was instant chemistry judging by this recording, Williams alive to every nuance and the magnetic Terfel, in his mid-40s and at his prime with those resonant low notes, powerful top and perfect diction.

A change of mood comes with Jacques Ibert’s four Chansons de Don Quichotte et Sancho, composed for the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin, with the last song, Chanson de la morte de Don Quichotte particularly moving.

Roger...