As David Patrick Stearns noted in his ‘The Musician and the Score’ interview with Iestyn Davies in the last issue, Die schöne Müllerin has been more resistant to performances by unexpected voice types than Schubert’s later Müller cycle, Winterreise. But Davies’s new recording of the earlier cycle is in fact not the first by a countertenor, coming some quarter of a century after Jochen Kowalski’s recording.

It’s clearly a very personal project, though, and in the interview Davies is at pains not to make great claims for its broad appeal. Suffice to say, though, that the artistry and intelligence he and pianist Joseph Middleton lavish on the work are never in doubt, and there are several highlights, especially among the more introspective, purely poetic songs.

‘Die liebe Farbe’ is hauntingly beautiful, for example, the countertenor spinning his line with a deeply affecting purity of tone, if not perhaps with ideal seamlessness. There’s a hypnotic quality to ‘Der Müller und der Bach’, too, and to ‘Des Baches Wiegenlied’, where the vocal line nestles gently into Middleton’s affectionately lulling accompaniment. The way the pair handle the switch in mood at ‘O Bächlein meiner Liebe’ in ‘Der Neugierige’ (at 1'00") will stop you in your tracks.

The performances are less convincing in the more outdoorsy numbers, though, where Davies’s delicate timbre isn’t really suited to getting down and dirty with the piano’s rough-and-tumble accompaniments. Middleton can’t be faulted, but the low transpositions used (the majority of the songs are performed down a fourth) also represent something of a compromise and mean that a lot of detail ends up in the piano’s rumbly lower register, with the voice sounding somewhat disconnected above – I couldn’t help wondering whether a fortepiano might have made for a more satisfying match. (Incidentally, Kowalski and his pianist, Markus Hinterhäuser, choose keys a tone or so higher than Davies and Middleton.)

Despite those reservations, though, this is an often beguiling – and well-recorded – album. The countertenor’s fans need not hesitate, and adventurous Schubertians might well also want to seek it out for a fresh perspective on this familiar work.