Another fascinating Schubertiad, this time comprising songs from the period 1817 to 1821. As before, it contains some familiar masterpieces, some unknown masterpieces, rarities and fragments, many of them receiving their first recording. Particularly fetching are the Singübungen—a wordless singing exercise for two sopranos, and Über allen Zauber Liebe (‘Love above all magic’) which, of all the Schubert fragments, is the most alluring. (Only four bars of music were needed to complete the setting and if the composer had provided the missing bars himself, and the piece subsequently published, it is hard to imagine what could have prevented the song from being known throughout the world, treasured and hummed by connoisseurs.)

All of the music on this album is also available as part of the specially priced box set The Complete Songs of Franz Schubert: ‘This is an archive of glorious Lieder singing as much as it is a definitive treasury of the greatest Lieder ever composed’ (The Guardian).