Marie-Nicole Lemieux brings a highly individual timbre to her Schumann recital. She’s that rare thing – a true contralto – and where songs sit comfortably within her range, she can be persuasive, as for instance in the opening song of the Op 39 Liederkreis. If you respond to her chocolaty tones, then you may want to investigate further.

I generally found Op 39 more effective than Frauenliebe und -Leben, simply because, where agility and spontaneity are required, she can tend towards the matronly, a fact exacerbated by the relatively low transposition. And there are moments of strain, for instance in the third song of Liederkreis, “Waldesgespräch”, while in the gloriously ambiguous “Auf einer Berg”, with its hypnotic canonic writing, there isn’t the range of colour that Isokoski so effortlessly finds (and in better-enunciated German too). There’s a sense that if you didn’t know these songs, you’d need to follow the texts to work out the mood being evoked; “Im Walde” is a case in point, where the exuberance of the opening verse and the desolation of the second are underplayed.

As for Frauenliebe, if it’s a girlish flightiness you want, you’re best off sticking with any number of existing classic performances, Anne Sofie von Otter and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson being personal favourites. Von Otter, particularly, offers edge and detail as well as sheer beauty of sound, and she’s superbly partnered by Bengt Forsberg. Daniel Blumenthal proves a rather less inspired companion for Lemieux. The rarely performed Die Löwenbraut – a sort of Germanic The Lion and Albert – however, is a treat, and the highlight of the disc.