Güra's noble and beautifully enunciated tenor recreates the sheer energy and spiritual struggle within the microcosm of Beethoven's songs…Berner's 1847 Streicher fortepiano captures well the clarity and the tonal depths of Beethoven's keyboard writing. And the artfully placed Bagatelles, fearlessly played, become both responses to and a spiritual fine-tuning for our reception of the songs.

Playing on an 1847 Streicher fortepiano – a direct descendant of the kind of instrument Beethoven knew – Berner relishes t[the Bagatelles'] quirkiness, explosive energy and rarefied lyricism...Güra’s mellifluous tenor has lost none of the freshness of a decade and more ago. He sings An die ferne Geliebte with a wondering, confiding intimacy, punctuated by surges of excited urgency.