Never one to understate a case, Wolf dubbed his Italian Songbook “the most original and artistically perfect of all my works”. While they may not probe the depths of passion and self-lacerating anguish of the Mörike and Spanish songbooks, these vignettes are unrivalled in their luminous grace – intermittently spiced by Wolfian malice – and their power of suggestion within a tiny span.

The men of the Italian Songbook are incorrigible romantics, voicing their longing and devotion in Wolf’s most ecstatic vein of lyricism. Christian Gerhaher, his warmly burnished high baritone in its prime, is well-nigh ideal. Everything he does sounds immediate, sincerely felt. He floats a beautiful, rapt line in love songs such as “Der Mond hat eine schwere Klag’ erhoben” and “Und willst du deinen Liebsten sterben sehen”. With the excellent Gerold Huber, he is ever-sensitive to harmonic flux, notably in the shifting perspectives of “Und steht’ ihr früh”. At the other end of the spectrum, he relishes Wolf’s portrayal of the lecherous bogus monks in “Geselle, soll’n wir uns in Kutten hüllen”, a scene straight out of Bocaccio’s Decameron.

With her sweet, pellucid tone and grace of phrase, Mojca Erdmann excels in songs of musing delicacy such as the crystalline “O wär’ dein Haus durchsichtig”. But she underplays the bitchery of numbers like “Wer rief dich, denn?” and “Wie lange schon”. In the latter she contemplates her incompetent (and, we can guess, impotent) violinist boyfriend with long-suffering melancholy. Schwarzkopf, with Fischer-Dieskau and Moore (EMI, 12/90), Barbara Bonney, with Håkan Hagegård (Teldec, 7/94), and Felicity Lott, with Peter Schreier (Hyperion, 9/94), all suggest a languid boredom, to which Schwarzkopf adds her own brand of contemptuous hauteur.

The final “Ich hab’ in Penna”, too – the female riposte to Don Giovanni’s mille e tre – could do with more gleeful bravado. That said, Erdmann’s singing is unfailingly musical. Some may even prefer her relative restraint. While not ousting the versions cited above, this new Italian Songbook deserves a place alongside them, above all for Gerhaher’s consummate, unostentatious artistry.