set lets you escape for hours on end. But what becomes even clearer in listening to this new set – and comparing Gerhaher’s earlier Schumann recordings with those from the last few years – is how it sees the baritone cultivating what might justifiably be described as a late style. Less is more: interpretations are defined by the subtlest of touches.

It’s an approach that also reflects the fact that Gerhaher’s voice, still an instrument of rare beguiling beauty, has inevitably lost some of the youthful bloom it had 15 years ago. It’s now a little wirier and less flexible and rich, meaning that exuberance seems to be refracted through experience, feelings retold rather than relived. Yet there is rarely, if ever, any sense of compromise or of pushing the voice in the heat of the moment (the baritone always stops short of hectoring). Indeed, one feels that there’s no such thing as the heat of the moment, only a meticulously worked-out interpretative path, devoid of indulgence or empty effects, faithfully followed.

It’s particularly fascinating to hear how, for example, Gerhaher’s new recording of Dichterliebe compares to that of nearly two decades ago. Phrases are filled out less generously now, dying out a little earlier, and there’s even a slight breathlessness and stiffness, for example, at ‘so werd’ ich ganz und gar gesund’ in the cycle’s fourth song. But there’s an exquisite tenderness to ‘Im wunderschönen Monat Mai’, while ‘Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet’ becomes a compelling study in numb concentration. ‘Ich grolle nicht’ (crowned by a respectable top A) offers not just anger but a whole complex of emotions. Huber’s contributions are superb, too: listen to the detail of his playing in ‘Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen’ or the pearly beauty he achieves in beautiful accounts of ‘Hör ich ein Liedchen klingen’ or ‘Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen’.

Elsewhere there are plenty of moments that call for a slight adjustment, where one might be used to more heroism than Gerhaher is willing to provide. He inevitably sounds a little reticent in ‘Tragödie I’ (from Op 64) or ‘Mit Myrthen und Rosen’ (from Op 24), for example, compared with the youthful Christopher Maltman on Hyperion (not to mention when compared with the young Simon Keenlyside in the Kerner Lieder and more). Rarely is his interpretative strategy less than fully convincing, though, and initially understated performances of ‘Der Soldat’ and ‘Der Spielmann’ (from Op 40) nevertheless end up delivering considerable dramatic power.

Gerhaher is undoubtedly at his best, though, in the more reflective and tender numbers – or moments – which abound in Schumann’s output. The Sechs Gesänge of Op 107 (already released on ‘Frage’) are a case in point, and there are plenty of breathtaking touches in the performance of Op 90, too, with which Gerhaher concludes the set. I must admit that the final ‘Requiem’ is a little disappointing: I prefer the more naturally communicative approach of the pair’s earlier recording. In the context, though, that feels like a very minor complaint.

There’s an enormous amount to enjoy from the other singers on the project, too, who, with Huber’s help, fit remarkably well into the general interpretative approach. I praised the clear-voiced Camilla Tilling in my review of ‘Myrthen’, and another superb singer, Julia Kleiter, bags the biggest other soprano assignment, giving us a beautifully understated and moving account of Frauenliebe und -leben, which imbues this wonderful cycle with a special freshness and directness. She’s also excellent in her contributions to the Mignon songs of Op 98a. The rich-voiced Wiebke Lehmkuhl is affecting, too, in the Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, if perhaps not as urgent as Hyperion’s Juliane Banse.

The ensembles and duets are all beautifully done, and it’s especially enjoyable to hear Gerhaher let his hair down with his colleagues in these numbers, many far from inspired, admittedly, but still providing numerous highlights. They complete a set that is ultimately less a labour of love – of Gerhaher and Huber’s love for Schumann – than a wonderful celebration of it, as well as a testament to their astonishing artistic partnership. It represents a moving, engrossing and enlightening achievement, and an essential addition to any lieder lover’s shelf. Hugo Shirley Vaughan Williams The House of Life. Four Hymnsa. On Wenlock Edgeb. The Brewer. Harry the Tailor. The Saucy Bold Robber Nicky Spence ten Julius Drake pf with a Timothy Ridout va bPiatti Quartet Hyperion F CDA68378 (70’ • DDD • T)

Nicky Spence and colleagues serve up a nourishing feast of Vaughan Williams’s vocal music, culminating in a performance of On Wenlock Edge which, in its thrilling assurance, strength of imagination and rapt instinct, inclines me to rank it alongside the very finest I know (Ian Partridge, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, John Mark Ainsley, Andrew Kennedy and James Gilchrist all spring to mind). I love the enviable hush and unruffled poise Julius Drake and the Piatti Quartet bring to the devastatingly moving ‘From far, from eve and morning’, the searing intensity of the climactic outburst in ‘Is my team ploughing’(‘Yes, lad, I lie easy, / I lie as lads would choose; / I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart, / Never ask me whose’) – and what intoxicating languor and (in the central section) icy chill these accomplished performers evoke in ‘Bredon Hill’, its overwhelming peak (‘Oh, noisy bells, be dumb’) projected by Spence with arresting impact. How memorable, too, are the final pages of ‘Clun’ with its sublime vision of a world beyond this one (‘Where doomsday may thunder and lighten / And little ’twill matter to one’).

Completed five years previously, in 1904, The House of Life comprises six settings from the eponymous collection of 100 sonnets by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828‑82), the most famous number being the inspired and justly loved ‘Silent noon’. Spence and Drake do it absolutely proud, and likewise locate an abundance of wistful tenderness and fragrant beauty in those two sensitive settings that top and tail the cycle, namely ‘Love-sight’ and ‘Love’s last gift’ (which opens with an early iteration of that indelible descending phrase that launches the hymn-tune ‘For all the saints’ and the 1952 motet O taste and see). Marvellous, too, to have such a superbly ardent, insightful account of the glorious Four Hymns for tenor, piano and viola. Dating from 1914 but not heard until 1920, these settings of texts by (among others) Dr Isaac Watts (16741748) and the metaphysical poet Richard Crashaw (1613‑49) find the composer at his questing best (and what ravishing sostenuto tone from viola player Timothy Ridout in No 3, ‘Come Love, come Lord’). As for the three folk-song arrangements, the jaunty tune for ‘The Saucy Bold Robber’ will be familiar to RVW acolytes from its appearance in the 1906 Norfolk Rhapsody No 2, while Spence has a blast in the hapless exploits of ‘Harry the Tailor’ and wicked fun of ‘The Brewer’.

Production (Simon Kiln), engineering (Ben Connellan) and booklet notes (the ever-perceptive Francis Pott) are everything one could desire. In sum, a hugely enjoyable offering for the RVW sesquicentennial. Andrew Achenbach

56 GRAMOPHONE 56 GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2022

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