We habitually recognise the importance of the pianist in Beethoven’s sonatas for violin or cello, but it makes a change for the accompanist in a recital of his Lieder to get a chance in the spotlight. Michael Schäfer’s discography is already quite varied and he deserves his three solo works here, dispatching the improvisatory Fantasia, Op 77 and Polonaise, Op 89, with aplomb. As an accompanist, he gives Beethoven’s often busy piano parts a strong sense of rhythm and propulsion, which suits his singer well enough. Dietrich Henschel is a decisive Lieder interpreter, with a firm voice, clear words and an assertive style. His tempi also tend to be relatively swift, for example shaving a few minutes off rival recordings of An die ferne Geliebte.

Taken on its own account, this is a desirable disc. Henschel and Schäfer give performances with a clear goal in mind and the programme is imaginatively chosen, interspersing Beethoven’s main contributions to the Lieder repertoire, such as An die Hoffnung and the six Gellert Lieder, Op 48, with a lively selection of individual songs. (Why doesn’t the sharp-witted song of the flea, Aus Goethes Faust, deftly characterised here, turn up in recitals more often?)

The snag is that much of this ground was covered by Stephan Genz in his highly-praised Beethoven disc for Hyperion. With his youthful baritone, so expressive when he is singing quietly and so flexible in the shaping of phrases, Genz is hard to resist. No singer has conveyed more touchingly a sense of humility in those songs where Beethoven, the early romantic, stands in awe of nature; and Hyperion’s closer balance also catches more colours in Roger Vignoles’s accompaniments. So, for poetry, Genz wins hands down; but the achievements of Henschel and Schäfer, more prosaic though they may be, should not be ignored.