Planning a CD programme around Schwanengesang is always tricky. The vastly experienced duo of Christoph Prégardien and Andreas Staier here come up with a solution as satisfying as any. They preface the quasi-cycle with the bleak, windswept Rellstab setting “Herbst”, which Schubert unaccountably omitted from the Rellstab sequence that opens Schwanengesang. Then, at they end, they follow “Die Taubenpost” – always in danger of jarring after the Weltschmerz of the Heine group – with other, complementary, Seidl settings, ending with the blissful nocturnal homecoming of “Im Freien” – nonsensically translated in the booklet as “Courtship” rather than “In the Open”.

Prégardien’s dulcet tenor, subtly and gracefully deployed, is heard to advantage both in these Seidl songs and in Schwanengesang. Where so many singers seem to “think” the whole collection in the minor key, as it were, Prégardien is eagerly expectant in “Liebesbotschaft” and sings a smiling, seductive “Fischermädchen”. His “Ständchen”, taken at an easy, mobile tempo, is likewise all caressing charm, with none of the melancholy suggested by Werner Güra (Harmonia Mundi) or John Mark Ainsley (Hyperion), while “Abschied” is blithely insouciant, the wistfulness of the final verse lightly touched – and how well the delicate, slightly veiled sonorities of Staier’s fortepiano complement the voice, here and elsewhere.

In the anguished Heine songs Prégardien presents a more “normal” figure than Peter Schreier in his searing (Gramophone Award-winning) recording with András Schiff (Decca, 6/90). Yet Prégardien’s less extreme style is scarcely less moving, whether in the rhythmically incisive “Der Atlas” (where the fortepiano’s percussive resonance brings uncommon clarity to Schubert’s quasi-orchestral textures), or an “Am Meer” of aching tenderness, the final stab of pain all the more affecting for being understated. “Die Stadt”, taken at an unusually urgent tempo, emerges in a single grim sweep, with the fortepiano’s sustaining pedal creating a mysterious haze impossible to replicate on a modern grand. As in his recent Schöne Müllerin, Prégardien occasionally adds discreet, graceful embellishments to his lines, especially apt, I thought, in “Ständchen”. While it is absurd to speak of an outright “winner” in such a crowded field, Prégardien and the ever-illuminating Staier join Schreier, Hotter, (EMI, 10/94), Fischer-Dieskau, 1962 vintage (EMI) and Brigitte Fassbaender (DG) on my roster of indispensable Schwanenengesang recordings.