For a first impression of James Newby, check him out on YouTube singing Handel’s heartbreaking “Cara pianta” as water rises to his lips, his nostrils, his eyebrows, and beyond (see link below). As rock fans may recognize, the video is a remake of Radiohead’s “No Surprises,” which is a stunner, too. On the third day of Christmas, the appealing British baritone and his fine pianist James Middleton segue from the Elizabethan John Dowland (“Flow my tears”) to masters of the German art song Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf, and Franz Liszt (represented by the celebrated “Tre sonetti di Petrarca”), and thence to the British composer Brian Elias (“I saw a peacock,” world premiere), coming full circle with Dowland’s melancholy “In darkness let me dwell.” —Matthew Gurewitsch

James Newby on YouTube singing Handel’s “Cara pianta”.