All Holzmair’s familiar gifts in Lieder are brought to bear on this absorbing selection of Goethe settings. Nowhere are they more to the fore than in a deeply considered account of the composer’s final thoughts on the poet’s Harfenspieler poems. Each of these masterpieces rends the heart by virtue of the sad, poignant singing. No less impressive, in a quite different fashion, is the biting defiance of Prometheus. In this miniature drama Schubert is writing in a prophetic manner way beyond his own time, and Holzmair’s delivery of text and music is searing.

The lighter, lyrical side of Schubert’s nature is encompassed with equal facility. The tender thoughts of Nachtgesang are given a properly palpitating expression; Der Fischer is warmly affecting; the longing of An den Mond is finely enacted. In the ineffably beautiful Nähe des Geliebten, the baritone’s colouring of the text is exemplary, as it is in Am Flusse. In lighter pieces, such as the folk-like Schweizerlied, the Papageno-like Wer kauft Liebesgötter? and the ever-charming ariette from Claudine von Villa Bella, Holzmair lightens his tone and and brings a smile into it. Sensibly these trifles are neatly intermixed with the serious offerings. He does his best to enliven some lesser Schubert – the composer is never quite at his most telling in longish ballad settings – but here, as throughout, he is admirably partnered by Gérard Wyss’s lively and perceptive playing. The recording is spacious and well balanced.