The year 1849 alone – dubbed by Schumann “the most fruitful of my life” – should give the lie to the old saw that his lyric genius declined irredeemably after the early 1840s. That year he virtually invented the Liederspiel (literally “song play”), a domestic entertainment that interleaves solos with duets and quartets in a quasi-dramatic narrative.

Of Schumann’s three Liederspiele, the Minnespiel (to poems by Rückert) is a paean to the marital bliss that the composer still experienced fitfully during his troubled final years in Dresden – though, typically of Schumann, several of the numbers have a more melancholy cast than the words might suggest. The jewels of the collection are “Mein schöner Stern”, a quietly ecstatic duet for tenor and keyboard that matches any of the composer’s earlier love lyrics, and the closing quartet, “So wahr die Sonne scheinet”, one of several numbers in these Liederspiele that raises homely charm to near-sublimity.

Comparably delightful are the two rarely performed collections that indulge the current German vogue for the romanticised exoticism of Spain. Spanish pastiche – bolero rhythms, strumming guitars and mandolins – mingles with quintessentially German numbers such as the mezzo’s haunting, Brahmsian “Hoch, hoch sind die Berge” in the Op 138 Liebeslieder. Mezzo Anke Vondung sings this, and her wistful solo from the Minnespiel, with an ideal grave simplicity. Baritone Konrad Jarnot brings wit and bravado to the irresistible “Der Contrabandiste” from Op 74, and a jaunty eagerness to his enchanting serenade in the Liebeslieder. Werner Güra sings his solos – not least “Mein schöner Stern” – with sweet tone and refined phrasing, while soprano Marlis Petersen is especially moving in “Melancholie”(Op 74), where Schumann infuses an ornamental, quasi-Spanish style with the spirit of JS Bach. Crucial, too, is the sense of teamwork, with the singers interacting vividly in duet and quartet. Throughout, pianists Christoph Berner and Camillo Radicke animate proceedings with rhythmic guile and point, a refined sense of texture, and, in the more obviously “Spanish” numbers, a palpable sense of enjoyment. There is plenty to relish in the performances masterminded by Graham Johnson in Hyperion’s Schumann Song Edition (4/02 and 4/10). But this new disc – even more consistently sung and exuding that much more spontaneity – now becomes the prime recommendation for these delectable, and still undervalued, Liederspiele.