Burdened inwardness has long been Matthias Goerne’s hallmark. Here, even more than in his live recording with Brendel, he seems to view even the tremulously hopeful songs of Schwanengesang through a gauze of nostalgia and regret. In the melancholy reverie of ‘Liebesbotschaft’, the poet-lover has obviously given up all hope that his water-borne message will ever reach the girl – if, indeed, she exists at all. ‘Ständchen’ presents the most dolefully resigned of serenaders, with Eschenbach minimising any hint of mandolin jauntiness in the accompaniment. ‘Fischermädchen’, the one ostensibly cheerful song in the Heine group, is all rueful introspection, the upward leaps at the end of each verse imbued with yearning rather than masculine bravado.

The distinctive mellow roundness of Goerne’s timbre, at once deep and soft-grained, and his care for a true, ‘bound’ legato are pleasures in themselves. He and the ever-fastidious Eschenbach invariably allow you to savour the sheer beauty of Schubert’s melodic lines. And in the sombre songs that predominate he can be deeply moving: say, in ‘Herbst’, that bleak ‘stray’ Rellstab setting (the chill autumnal gusts hauntingly evoked by Eschenbach); or a hushed, traumatised ‘Die Stadt’. He finds a touch of iron within the velvet for a grimly powerful ‘Der Atlas’, enhanced by Eschenbach’s orchestral depth of tone, and passes one of Schubert’s supreme tests of sostenuto with a hypnotic ‘Am Meer’, the melisma on the final ‘Tränen’ infused with an aching tenderness I have never quite heard equalled. ‘Der Doppelgänger’, too, is mesmeric in its way, as long as you can accept by far the most protracted tempo on disc (two minutes longer than Goerne takes with Brendel). You might feel quite a lot older by the time the voice enters. But the horrified climax of self-recognition, and the infinite pathos of the ebbing ‘in alter Zeit’, are worth waiting for.

Slowness is also a prime – the prime – feature of Eschenbach’s B flat Sonata. As in Schwanengesang, his luminous refinement of touch and mastery of delicate colourings are everywhere in evidence. Yet in his apparent determination to turn the sonata into a protracted valediction, his playing can seem self-regarding. The elegiacally distended opening theme, which, initially at least, should surely have a measure of tranquil simplicity, sets the tone. The Scherzo and finale tarry at the slightest provocation. Most controversial is the second movement, clocking in at a surreal 13'24" against a norm of around nine minutes. Andante sostenuto, with a suggestion of a gentle barcarolle, becomes a trance-like Largo assai. Being charitable, you might say Eschenbach aligns the movement with Goerne’s conception of the Heine songs. To my ears it verges on the grotesque.