The first three volumes of Holger Falk’s Eisler series with Steffen Schleiermacher (8/17, 1/18, A/18) ranged from 1929 to 1962, the year of the composer’s death. Now the final volume returns us to his youth, covering his very first essays in a form in which he would prove so prolific: as Schleiermacher’s detail-packed if somewhat erratically translated booklet essay puts it, ‘Altogether, [Eisler] wrote almost 500 songs, so he might … be one of the most important song composers of the 20th century.’

Either way, it’s fascinating to hear where it all started, with the initially self-taught Eisler exploring various creative options (and reflecting the penchant for translations of Eastern poetry), before falling under the influence of the Second Viennese School and his teacher Schoenberg in his Op 2 and then deliberately breaking from literary conventions to set newspaper small ads in his ‘Zeitungsauschnitte’ of 1927.

What’s remarkable is the conviction and honesty that underpin even these earliest songs – and there are some gems. The album is topped and tailed by appealingly impish settings from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. ‘Der Tod’ (1918) is sternly impressive, ‘Die Mausfalle’ charming, while the melody Eisler hits upon to portray bored whistling in ‘von der Langeweile’ is inspired, if that’s the right word for a song (possibly to Eisler’s own text) that describes a day with all the life of ‘a half-smoked cigarette’.

As before, there’s little to fault in Falk’s committed, imaginative singing or Schleiermacher’s vivid accompaniment. Over these four albums the pair have recorded more than 150 songs in what’s an important project. It’s just a shame that, as before, MDG fails to provide translations for the sung texts – a major drawback for non-German speakers.