The quieter moments of these songs show Allan Clayton’s voice at its best: smooth, tender and altogether alluring…By and large his diction is good…overall the performances are alive to the drama in many of these songs, suggesting what the quality might have been of the mature opera Liszt never wrote.

A willingness to take risks…has always been integral to [Clayton’s] singing, and the dividends are often enormous…There are also wonderful moments of lyrical reflection, though, and the way he sings ‘Du bist wie eine Blume’ with a poised mezza voce is breathtaking. Drake, meanwhile, invests every phrase with weight and meaning, and is, as ever, outstanding. Another fine disc in an exceptional series.

Another fine instalment to this superb series.

Clayton brings the same compelling mixture of ardour and vulnerability that made his Glyndebourne Hamlet such a sensation to a selection of German and French songs: the latter, in particular, suggest that the voice is on the cusp of a transition into more dramatic territory...Spotlit by a pleasingly dry acoustic which allows every thoughtful detail to register, Drake is characteristically eloquent and imaginative throughout – listen, for instance, to the two completely different moods which he invokes with a simple repeated phrase in the space of just two bars in the opening of ‘Morgens steh’ ich auf und frage’.

Clayton is on communicative form, essaying the many moods with a beguiling sense of spontaneity and with every word telling. His ability to sing ethereally and lightly is a distinct asset as is the capacity to darken the tone and bring a sense of wild urgency to passages. The programming is clever, too, in presenting different versions of the same verse.