With its generic title - "Romanze" - this superb album is likely to go unnoticed, which would be a great pity considering the quality of the works presented and their performers. Israeli opera singer Chen Reiss has chosen a programme of works for soprano and clarinet which she shares with Andy Miles, a versatile German clarinetist who, as well as being a competent soloist with the WDR Orchestra in Cologne, is a composer of film music and author of the highly successful Symphonic Jazz Rhapsody. Seemingly heterogeneous in appearance, the programme reveals rare gems, beginning with the Overture taken from the stage music for Sophocles' Oedipus King by Franz Lachner, a close friend of Schubert's who was also in contact with the fierce Beethoven. The expressive weight and seriousness of this Overture immediately outlines the drama to come. From the announcement of the joyful spring of Mozart's Schon lachet der holde Frühling to the arrival of Schubert's last spring sung by The Shepherd on the Rock (Der Hirt auf dem Felsen) in an arrangement for orchestra, this album features rare works by Ludwig Spohr and Schubert, including the sublime Romance from his forgotten Die Verschworenen singspiel ("The Conjured Ones"). The supple, sensual and charming voice of Chen Reiss does perfect justice to the delicate poetry of this early German Romanticism. © François Hudry/Qobuz