Diana Damrau and Jonas Kaufmann, reigning stars of opera, are also consummate interpreters of song. They caused great excitement when, in February 2018, they gave a series of 12 recitals in six countries around Europe with the pianist Helmut Deutsch, a long-time collaborator of Kaufmann and one of the world’s great song accompanists. The repertoire they presented was Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch (Italian Songbook) a collection written by the Austrian composer in the 1890s to texts adapted by Paul Heyse from Italian poems. The programme was recorded live for this album when the trio performed in the Alfried Krupp Saal of the Philharmonie in the German city of Essen.