Every encounter with the chilly depths of Schubert’s Winterreise is like a new beginning, according to Andrè Schuen in the booklet notes, which explains why so many lieder singers return to it more than any piece in the song repertoire. Already well established in Schubertian circles, Schuen and pianist Daniel Heide take their place among the best, with special skills including an intimate understanding of the recording medium: this is more than an interpretation preserved for the ages but a Winterreise – probably unachievable in the concert hall – taking place inside the protagonist’s head, even as the poems describe the bleak visual environment in which he dies. This is an almost anti-performative approach – particularly in contrast to Benjamin Appl’s calculated fussiness (Alpha, 3/22) or the consciously angry Christian Gerhaher (RCA).

The relatively simple strophic song ‘Gute Nacht’ that opens the cycle is sometimes sung without great incident, setting up the rule of the road in this winter journey. Thanks partly to their understanding of the verse and ability to project subtle shifts in the music, Schuen and Heide treat each stanza as a psychological progression, the third stanza being the pivot that sets the protagonist to act on his longtime sense of alienation by searching for redemption in the winter landscape. From there, singer and pianist intelligently trace the cycle’s dramatic arc by becoming the character, and sustain that with smart underlying strategy. Schuen often employs various degrees of head voice, giving his baritone the kind of plaintive quality that one associates with the best tenor-voice Winterreise recordings. While Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau projected the text with forceful articulation, Schuen has a naturally imposing tone to do that work. Phrases are scaled so that Wilhelm Müller’s rhyme schemes never seem like a tidy cap at the end of a line but the full expression of what has come before. Technique truly counts in ‘Der Wegweiser’ when Schuen’s voice dissolves into the landscape as he enters paths that can’t be retraced.

The final song, ‘Der Leiermann’, is a litmus test of Winterresse recordings. Among baritone recordings, Roderick Williams (Chandos, 3/21) gives excruciating clarity to the details of the poem, while Gerhard Husch (now on Pristine Classical) and the 1971 Fischer-Dieskau recording (DG, 1/73) both take a searing, unmarked crescendo at the end of the song. A decision from having both survived world wars? Or just a different edition of the score? Like many younger baritones, Schuen and Heide exit quietly, a moment of transcendence into nothingness, though Heide’s pianism finds a misshapen quality to the simple melody, almost anticipating Erik Satie’s lonely solo piano works. Among modern baritones, my overall first choice remains Florian Boesch with Malcolm Martineau (Onyx, 3/12), partly because Martineau delivers one revelation after another. But in a masterwork as open-ended as Winterreise, one great recording never eclipses another.