The German bass baritone Matthias Goerne must spend most of his professional life in recording studios at the moment. Over the past two years, around a dozen of his albums have been released or reissued, including plenty of Schubert and Brahms, as well as music by Berio, a complete Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and his ongoing Ring project with Jaap van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He has also returned to the songs of Schumann with this excellent Harmonia Mundi album Einsamkeit, which covers some of the same ground as his 2004 Decca release with pianist Erich Schneider. Goerne has matured into one of the most in-demand and compelling singers amongst an impressive field of bass and baritone Lieder specialists, his warm, full and dark timbre ideal for this thoughtful collection covering the full span of Schumann’s output, from Myrthen – his 1840 wedding gift to Clara – to Abenlied, written some 12 years later. Goerne is also making his recording debut with Italian-born Austrian pianist Markus Hinterhauser and their musical chemistry is immediately apparent from the seductive opening track Meine Rose. The duo made a huge impression when they performed Schubert’s Winterreise in last year’s Sydney Festival. Their partnership…

Eight years ago ABC Classic FM listeners voted their top 100 chamber works and Schubert ‘podiumed’ spectacularly, taking four of the top five places, with the Trout Quintet winning gold. Runner-up was the String Quintet, and with so many hundreds of recordings to choose from, what recommends this new release by the French fivesome of the Ébène Quatuor and Gautier Capuçon? Well, if for no other reason than you get a wonderful bonus in five beautifully arranged Schubert Lieder sung by German baritone Matthias Goerne.But at over an hour’s length, the Quintet and its four kaleidoscopic movements are the main course, and what a superb meal the Frenchmen dish up! Schubert’s masterpiece takes no prisoners with its emotional twists and turns, dynamic shifts and roller-coaster mood swings, and this is a very thoughtful and intelligent reading with plenty of Gallic flair and charm. As the quartet says in the liner notes: “It is a quintet reflecting both real life and dreams, the sacred and the profane, joy and mourning, revelry in the open air and monks walking to prayer through the cloisters, jubilation in the tavern, and testament of the soul.” The players are in no hurry – the Adagio comes…

I first encountered Matthias Goerne’s artistry 17 years ago with his first contribution to Hyperion’s landmark Schubert Edition; he opened with Lob der Tränen and one was bowled over by the sheer beauty of the voice with its velvet sheen and rich, dark colour. He was granted the honour of providing the edition’s Winterreise which was predictably excellent then jumped ship to Decca and for me the shine went off ever so slightly. His singing took on some mannerisms that started to pall with repetition; fussy micro-managed phrasing and a tendency to croon. Thankfully that turned out to be just a stage in his artistic development and with him signing to Harmonia Mundi for an 11 disc survey of Schubert Lieder those artifices have disappeared.  We live at a time when there is an extraordinary array of fine singers tackling this repertoire, but this series is something quite special; the overwhelmingly moving Die Schöne Mullerin from 2009 with Christoph Eschenbach’s magisterial accompaniment is one of my desert island discs and the very definition of the word Innigkeit.  This final instalment with its predominantly nocturnal imagery is on a similar plane with limpidly beautiful and subtle contributions by Helmut Deutsch and…