One doesn’t hear much of Othmar Schoeck these days, though he was championed by Fischer-Dieskau, who recorded Notturno and the earlier work for baritone and orchestra, Lebendig begraben. And it’s Fischer-Dieskau who comes to mind, uncannily so, in the opening phrases of this performance. Notturno, completed in 1933, was inspired by a love affair between Schoeck and a woman called Mary de Senger that had ended 10 years previously. A triplet phrase associated with Mary recurs throughout the piece; the word-setting is syllabic, the style expressionist, like Berg on an off-day, with a dash of Debussy in the first of two interludes for the strings alone.

It’s all pretty unlovable at first, but parts of it grow on you. “Blick in den Strom”, the fourth poem in the long opening movement, is anchored by a pedal C on the cello while the restless second violin and viola depict the stream of the title. And Schoeck’s setting of the Keller prose poem is a real surprise: pure C major (with a few chromatic inflexions), the strings sustaining chords over a simple ground bass. It makes a haunting contrast to the prevailing gloom.

The performance is admirable, the intensity and beauty of Christian Gerhaher’s singing matched by the quartet. The booklet-note is indispensable for the background but the analysis is a bit of a muddle.