CPO’s complete Brahms song series started as long ago as the early ’90s, and the sessions for this release – a substantial appendix to that 10-disc project – date from between 1997 and 2003. Anyone who’s been sticking with the whole survey will no doubt want to snap it up, and it’s also a useful collection for people wanting to explore Brahms’s vocal ensembles from the starting point of the oft-recorded sets of Liebesliederwalzer (happily CPO provides full texts and English translations).

As with those works, this is mainly Brahms in relaxed, easy-going vein, pieces primarily written for domestic – or at least amateur – performance. Gentle inspiration is the order of the day, rather than towering manifestations of genius. In fact, the lighter numbers tend to be the most successful: such joyous ditties as ‘Die Schwestern’ from Op 61 (a little like a ‘Three little maids from school’ avant la lettre) or the Des Knaben Wunderhorn-derived ‘Guter Rat’ (Op 75) are more fun for listeners and, one suspects, performers than such melodramatic ballads as ‘Walpurgisnacht’ or the earnest ‘Edward’, also from Op 75.

There are ‘gypsy song’ arrangements – also great fun – as well as full-fat Brahmsian delights, such as ‘O schöne Nacht’ from Op 92 or ‘Phänomen’ (Op 61); the Op 64 Quartets strike me as a particularly seductive mixture of the Schubertian and the unmistakably Brahmsian.

Andreas Schmidt, Juliane Banse and Helmut Deutsch have been the stalwarts of the series, and they form the core of the personnel in performances that are always engaged and idiomatic. Schmidt’s tone is rich and rounded, Banse’s focused, if occasionally a little intense. Deutsch’s playing is a joy throughout, whether skipping along with a mischievous twinkle in the eye or conjuring up misty Romantic soundscapes.

Wolfram Rieger steps in as the second pianist in the Liebesliederwalzer, where Christoph Prégardien doesn’t quite sound at his most mellifluous but is still an ever-intelligent and musical presence. Marcus Ullmann sings cleanly, with a light, open timbre, while Ingeborg Danz and Iris Vermillion offer rich-voiced mezzo contributions.

What some might find missing is the force of character others have brought to this repertoire: you get that in spades in DG’s 1970s recordings of this music, featuring the likes of Edith Mathis, Brigitte Fassbaender, Peter Schreier and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. The engineering could be a little cleaner, too. None of that stops this being an enjoyable release on its own terms, though, and a fine conclusion to a major project.