The most eye-catching part of the packaging for The Good Song was a small explicit content sticker in the top left hand corner. I didn’t give it much thought, writing it off as a packaging error, or a joke, a mild grab for attention. It wasn’t until I was looking through the English translations of Poulenc’s Chansons gaillardes provided with the disc that I realised this sticker might be more related to the content that first expected. Poulenc’s Chansons gaillardes derives its lyrical content from obscene 17th-century texts, resulting in lyrics such as:

     To the god of love a virgin

     Offered a candle

     That she might obtain a lover

     The god smiled at her request

     And said to her: Pretty one while you wait,

     You can always use the offering

It is an example of obscenity realised as beautiful music. Of course these words sound far more eloquent in French.

In 2013 Thomas Meglioranza devoted an entire album to Schubert’s Winterreise, a logical extension of 2007’s Schubert Songs. It is with interest that 2014’s The Good Song moves tangentially to Meglioranza’s recorded work this far. There is no Schubert to be heard here, but Meglioranza doesn’t stray too far from the...