Schumann’s songs are surely performed now more frequently than at any period in the past. At the same time has come a burgeoning of interest in his wife’s output in the genre. Discs of their songs seem to appear almost every month. This welcome newcomer adds another enjoyable experience to those already available. But it has something extra to offer in the wonderful rapport between Wolfgang Holzmair and Imogen Cooper‚ exhibited in their extended work for Philips‚ now sadly ended – evidence of the company’s short­sighted attitude. This CD has taken more than three years to see the light‚ though goodness knows why. Singer and pianist work together almost by instinct in thinking themselves into the very heart of these songs. Anything of extrovert display or seeking the limelight is quite foreign to these artists’ natures. Each song is approached from within‚ so that the results are like being a witness at their communion with both composers. Holzmair’s plangent‚ very Viennese voice bespeaks the vulnerability that lies at the soul of Robert’s Eusebius side‚ heard to mesmeric effect in the great‚ slower songs of Op 35‚ but he is just as capable of tramping the ways with Schumann when he is in his Florestan mood. In his other songs‚ Holzmair is equally mesmeric in the Venetian song‚ so intimately done‚ almost whispered and the old favourite Der Nussbaum receives as delicate a reading as one could wish. Clara is well represented especially by an inspired setting of a sad poem by Heine‚ Sie liebten sich beide‚ and it is interesting to hear what she does with Rückert’s Liebst du um Schönheit‚ which Mahler set very differently a half century later. Clara doesn’t pale by the comparison. Cooper is wholly in sympathy with Clara’s pianistic style as she is – needless to say – with Robert’s. Her playing throughout the programme is at once supportive of her partner and individual in itself. The recording is faultless.