David Greco and Erin Helyard’s back to basics survey of Schubert’s song cycles continues with the same freshness and vitality that characterised the pair’s ear-opening Winterreise last year. The emphasis again is on historically-informed practice, Greco’s approach remaining essentially the same as before, Helyard exchanging the fortepiano employed in Winterreise for a modern Paul McNulty piano built in 2015 and modelled on an Anton Graf instrument from two centuries earlier when Schubert was in his ascendancy.

Album artwork

The combined effect is noticeable from the off, Greco and Helyard launching into Das Wandern with a becomingly bright and ardent buoyancy. Largely informed by an edition of the cycle published in 1830, two years after Schubert’s death – one that included embellishments subtly foregrounding the use of portamento, rubato and lightly accented ornamentation...