The piercing intelligence and dry registered ardour of Peter Schreier's particular qualities as a Lieder singer are ideally suited to the impulsive, dramatic, often melancholy spirit of Schumann's idiom, which itself found fullest expression in the songs that he wrote throughout his life and which this set so usefully surveys, from the total identification of the Romantic artist with his life and loves in the Liederkreis Op.24 to elliptical and ruminative settings of Lenau, the last work that Schumann composed in Dresden before his move to Düsseldorf, now less well‐known than they should be but touched by circumstantial tragedy: Lenau's death was announced on the day of the first performance.

The composer felt 'as if I were a tolling‐bell all unawares and later wrote to his publisher, urging a speedy release of the cycle: “I should be pleased if you would help me create a modest monument to the great but unfortunate poet.” Less doom‐laden are the earlier cycles and many individual songs recorded here, which speak of the joys of a lover in spring, each turn of Schumann's verse structures enlivened by Schreier's deep understanding both of the poetry and setting. Highly personal as they are, his readings enter into very essence of the works performed, making them part of his own self. The result is an affinity between composer and interpreter that is as amazing as it is moving.