This is, by my reckoning, only the third audio recording of Cardillac, Paul Hindemith’s first full-scale opera, premiered in Dresden in 1926. And, since Marc Albrecht’s Wergo recording (7/89) seems to be out of both the digital and physical catalogues, BR Klassik’s new offering can only really be welcomed.

It’s a solid performance of a work that deserves to be much better known: a fierce, concentrated shot of music drama that serves as an antidote to the diffuse nature of so much opera of the time. At just 90 minutes, its three acts whizz by, with few scenes lasting more than five minutes.

In a nod to Classical (or even Baroque) opera, each number is given a traditional designation, and there’s plenty of knotty counterpoint and sharp-edged melody, as one might expect from this composer. The plot – which tells of the obsessive goldsmith Cardillac, who murders his customers to retrieve the work they’ve bought – is hardly endearing, but the conviction of the work is unwavering, the singlemindedness compelling, with several moments of real beauty among the rough-and-tumble: the pantomime love scene in Act 1, played out by two intertwining flutes, for example, or the disarmingly beautiful final bars.

The late Stefan Soltész brings expert control to this challenging score, which is performed well enough by the Munich Radio Orchestra. The cast do a decent job, too, with Torsten Kerl’s powerful Officer and Juliane Banse, as Cardillac’s daughter, standing out. As Cardillac himself, Markus Eiche is often persuasive, but his essentially lyrical baritone – he’s a Bayreuth Wolfram rather than, as the role’s creator was, a Bayreuth Alberich – is simply too soft-edged for him to assert himself on the drama as much as one would like.

Turn to the only other recording currently available – albeit to stream only – and one gets a sense of what’s missing. It might be over half a century old but Joseph Keilberth’s account with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the title-role conveys the opera’s drama a great deal more vividly, with playing, singing and even recorded sound of considerably more edge and bite.

A welcome for this new version, then, but a muted one – and, despite including a fascinating booklet essay, BR Klassik doesn’t help its cause by offering no sung text.