With Schubert dead and Schumann devoting himself almost exclusively to the piano, the 1830s might seem a relatively fallow, ‘in-between’ decade for song. Yet, as Malcolm Martineau and his singer colleagues reveal, there is charm, wit and inventiveness aplenty in songs that embrace nine composers and three languages. Best known are those by Felix Mendelssohn, of which ‘Pagenlied’ is an irresistible serenade-on-tiptoe. The three songs by Fanny Mendelssohn, unerringly locating the fine line between sensitivity and sentimentality, are at least a match for her brother’s in poetic insight and melodic allure; and while Franz Lachner’s ‘Fischermädchen’ and ‘Ihr Bildnis’ are more extrovert and (in ‘Ihr Bildnis’) less disturbing than his friend Schubert’s famous settings, they have a distinctive atmosphere of their own.

If Lachner can momentarily make you question that Schubert had set these Heine verses for all time, Carl Loewe’s settings of poems from Chamisso’s Frauenliebe und -leben, sweet and jaunty by turns, sound comfortably domesticated alongside Schumann’s. Angelika Kirchschlager, a singer incapable of dullness, has the lion’s share of the German Lieder here. While her vibrant mezzo can sound a touch unwieldy, with high notes inclined to billow, Kirchschlager is always an involving interpreter. She nicely dramatises Mendelssohn’s bardic ‘Das Waldschloss’, a woodland variant of the Lorelei tale, and brings a sly wit and timing to Loewe’s naively charming ballads ‘Der verliebte Maikäfer’ – a sort of shaggy cockchafer story – and ‘Der Kuckuck und der Nachtigall’, set, more acerbically, by Mahler as ‘Lob des hohen Verstandes’.

Soraya Mafi, a soprano new to me, has the ideal grace and tonal purity for Fanny Mendelssohn’s gently touching ‘Die Mainacht’ (setting a Hölty poem immortalised by Brahms), and catches all the rapturous excitement of her ‘Wanderlied’. John Mark Ainsley, the tone not quite as easefully lyrical as of old, sings the Lachner songs with understanding and feeling. Moving across the Rhine, Lorna Anderson is all Gallic insouciance in Meyerbeer’s ‘La fille de l’air’, abetted by Malcolm Martineau’s spun-silk accompaniment, and exploits the mezzo warmth within her soprano in Berlioz’s haunting romance ‘Je crois en vous’, later recycled in Benvenuto Cellini. The French romance is also the prime influence on the delightful Russian songs here, composed at a time when a true national idiom was still emerging. Baritone Alexey Gusev, with his dark, unmistakably Slavic timbre, dispatches these with elegance and point, patently relishing the verbal music of his native language. This is another young singer to watch.

With accompaniments that are often discreetly supportive, it’s too easy to take for granted Martineau’s contribution: rhythmically animated, subtly nuanced, always alive to opportunities for wit and colour. Presentation, as in previous volumes, is first-rate, with texts and translations, and stimulating notes from Susan Youens that make you want to hear these songs, many of them rarities, as a matter of urgency.