It is a bold venture for the young company Stone Records to set out to record the songs of Hugo Wolf complete. Recorded live at the Holywell Music Room in Oxford as part of the Oxford Lieder Festival in 2010, these first two discs offer 53 of the Lieder to words by Eduard Mörike, including some of Wolf’s finest. The team of four singers is first-rate, responsive in every way, and if anything even more remarkable is the work of their pianist, Sholto Kynoch, displaying an exceptional expressive range, not only ideally agile but with the most subtle range of tone and dynamic.

The very opening song, sung by Stephan Loges, sets a deeply meditative mood, ‘Der Genesene an die Hoffnung’ (‘He who has recovered addresses Hope’), followed by a nicely pointed account of ‘Der Knabe und das Immlein’ (‘The boy and the bee’), sung by Sophie Daneman. Kynoch then shows his mettle in the song ‘Er ists’ (‘Spring is here’), fresh and urgent, with an extended postlude for the pianist.

Other high spots of the first disc include ‘Das verlassene Mägdlein’ (‘The forsaken servant-girl’) from Daneman, ‘Fussreise’ (‘A journey on foot’) from Loges, ‘An eine Äolsharfe’ (‘To an aeolian harp’) from Grevelius, and ‘Auf einer Wanderung’ (‘On a walk’) beautifully sprung from James Gilchrist as well as from Kynoch, with a subtle change of mood at the end. In ‘Verborgenheit’ (‘Seclusion’), Loges seems less happy in the lower register but he expands to a fine climax.

Loges is the soloist in ‘Um Mitternacht’ (‘At midnight’), quite different from the Mahler setting of the same title. Gilchrist sings both contrasted settings entitled ‘Auf eine Christblume’ (‘On a Christmas rose’), the second shorter and lighter. Daneman sings with fine purity in ‘Seufzer’ (‘Sighs’), while the first disc is nicely rounded off by Gilchrist and Kynoch in ‘Schlafendes Jesuskind’ (‘The sleeping Christ-child’) and ‘Karwoche’ (‘Holy Week’), with trills on the piano.

The second disc follows a similar pattern except that Gilchrist and Loges seem to have a bigger share of the memorable items. Gilchrist sings with great tenderness in ‘An die Geliebte’ (‘To the beloved’), and he is equally impressive in ‘Der Jäger’ (‘The huntsman’) with its distinctive, vigorous accompaniment. Loges is most sensitive in the two songs to ‘Peregrina’ as well as in ‘Heimweh’ (‘Longing for home’), but it is Gilchrist who takes over the most challenging as well as the most difficult of all Wolf’s songs for male voice, ‘Der Feuerreiter’ (‘The fire-rider’), with its clanging bells and piano accompaniment even more difficult than Schubert’s in ‘Der Erlkönig’. There Kynoch excels himself in virtuosity, before the hushed epilogue.

Daneman conveys a sense of fantasy in the song about the water-sprite, ‘Nixe Binsefuss’, with Kynoch bringing a liquid quality to the rippling accompaniment. Aptly the disc ends with ‘Abschied’ (‘Goodbye’), with Loges bringing out its quirky element, and Kynoch relishing the final waltz-like postlude, a fine conclusion. Altogether an impressive achievement from an enterprising new company.