Following in the wake of Hyperion’s marvellous surveys of Schubert and Schumann Lieder, here comes the even more welcome first volume of a projected Richard Strauss edition. Though future plans remain vague while the company fights its much-publicised legal action, the complete edition is something to be devoutly hoped for: Strauss was a great Lieder composer but only a small fraction of his 200-plus songs are at all well known.

Admittedly, Strauss’s taste in poetry was not always as elevated as that of his fellow composers, yet his music can transform rather ordinary verses. And the major poets do get a look-in. This disc includes two Heine settings, one of which, ‘Frühlingsfeier’, came a year after Salome and echoes the operatic score. This is where Christine Brewer, whose repertory includes the title-roles in Ariadne auf Naxos and Die ägyptische Helena, might be expected to be most comfortable: her big, gleaming soprano sweeps through impressively. If at first her voice seems less than ideally flexible as a Lieder instrument, especially in the earlier songs, it would be ungrateful not to marvel at what she does ultimately bring to these performances.

Opening with ‘Zueignung’, which Strauss never intended to be relegated to encore status, Brewer sounds glorious if a little staid. But she quickly lightens up, catching the palpitations of ‘Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten’ and the gem-like intimacy of ‘Leises Lied’. She positively blazes in the sunlight-evoking ‘In der Campagna’, where Roger Vignoles’s piano captures the splash of a Straussian orchestra. Vignoles is very much an equal partner, and both artists bring something fresh to the chestnuts ‘Allerseelen’ and ‘Wiegenlied’, in which Brewer floats a beautiful line over the rippling accompaniment. Possessing the high tessitura demanded in the rarely heard Gesänge des Orients, Brewer clinches any remaining argument magnificently.