A prolific composer for the voice, Wilhelm Kienzl (1857-1941) scored an international success with his 1895 opera Der Evangelimann, but gradually became a marginalised and anachronistic figure in Vienna. Today his name is little more than a footnote. But on this evidence, his Lieder – melodically attractive, resourcefully composed, and in an idiom that owes something to Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, but far less to his idol Wagner – are well worth revival.

Spanning three decades from the mid-1870s, the songs here range from the whimsical charm of “Die verschwiegene Nachtigall” and the piquant folk tale “Röslein und Schmetterling”, via the wry mother–daughter dialogue of “Triftiger Grund”, to the shrouded, Brahmsian melancholy of “Sehnsucht nach Vergessen” and “An die Nacht”. Any Wagnerian influence tends to surface in the later songs, above all in “Augenblicke”, with its solemn, incantatory vocal line and post-Tristan chromaticism. Kienzl twice sets texts immortalised by Schubert, but while his turbulent response to Heine’s “Ich stand in dunklen Träumen” (set here as “Traumesahnung”) is a valid alternative to Schubert’s traumatised stillness, his “Der Leiermann” transports the forlorn organ-grinder from Müller’s icy landscape to the comfort of the drawing room.

Of the three singers, Christiane Libor gives the most consistent pleasure, fining down her ample soprano in a touching “Die verschwiegene Nachtigall”, and characterising deftly in “Triftiger Grund” and the half-comic, half-rueful “Die Urgrossmutter”. Carsten Süss’s pleasing tenor tightens at forte and above, and Jochen Kupfer’s imagination and involvement are slightly compromised by some rawness of tone. Stacey Bartsch, though a little disadvantaged by the resonant acoustic, makes her mark in the rewarding piano parts. Despite my provisos, this disc is recommended to any inquisitive Lieder lover inclined to investigate what Calum MacDonald, in his stimulating notes, aptly dubs Kienzl’s “unassuming but echt-romantic style”.