‘Are orchestral versions of Schubert’s lieder really necessary?’ asks Benjamin Appl at the start of his booklet note. It’s a good question, and one that the album doesn’t definitively answer. What it does do, however, is offer a broad overview of the practice featuring arrangements from the 19th to the 21st centuries, plus arrangements of some German Dances.

What’s striking above all is the fact that there are only subtle differences in approaches. The young Webern is perhaps the most distinctive, introducing finely mixed orchestral colours (there’s a real added sense of the ominous and uncanny in his treatments of ‘Ihr Bild’ and ‘Der Wegweiser’). Few will be able to resist the burbling clarinet in Britten’s wonderful ‘Die Forelle’.

Some of Reger’s arrangements – inspired, Appl explains, to banish the practice of his time of singer and piano being wheeled on to perform songs in the middle of orchestral concerts – are more successful than others. ‘Nacht und Träume’ is beautifully done, and ‘Erlkönig’ is undoubtedly rousing. But with both Reger and other arrangers here, strings tend to smooth over the original textures, and woodwind counterpoints can bring an unwanted hint of kitsch. There’s too much oom pah for me in Kurt Gillmann’s ‘Ganymed’, too heavy a whiff of the spa town bandstand in Offenbach’s ‘Ständchen’. Some songs, meanwhile, are simply less happy with the transition to the larger stage than others.

Appl and his conductor, Oscar Jockel (a name to watch, it seems, judging from his stellar CV), clearly believe in the arrangements, though, and there’s much to enjoy from their performances. The baritone’s voice, not a large, juicy or powerful instrument, is helped by the engineers (in performance, balance can be a major issue with these arrangements), allowing us to hear plenty of detail; he has a fine way with the words and is an intelligent, sensitive communicator. He is at his best in the more intimate numbers, proving less successful where grandeur, low notes or sheer vocal authority are called for. Jockel, for his part, shapes the accompaniments effectively and the Munich orchestra is decent. Necessary? The jury’s still out, but there’s nevertheless plenty to like here, even though BR-Klassik fails to include texts or translations.