Graham Johnson’s Schumann songs series for Hyperion has reached its penultimate volume. In this series, the most exciting young artists—as well as the most experienced Schumann performers—have produced masterful yet intimately communicative performances of varied programmes of these wonderful works. Kate Royal is the soprano of the moment, at the start of her career yet an acknowledged great artist, and her performance here of the Eichendorff Liederkreis Op 39 is one where ‘imagination, intellect and vocal technique are inextricably fused in the single moment of a song’, as The Times wrote of her Wigmore Hall recital in January this year.

The disc also features enchanting vocal chamber pieces and less well-known songs such as the Drei Gedichte nach Emanuel Geibel. As ever, the disc includes comprehensive and fascinating notes supplied by Graham Johnson that fill out every detail of the genesis, context and publication of these masterpieces.

All of the music on this album is also available as part of the specially priced box set Schumann: The Complete Songs: 'A landmark issue no serious collector should be without' (The Mail on Sunday).