Recently, German baritone Matthias Goerne performed Schubert’s Wintereisse in Melbourne. At the end of the performance the audience remained still. No one clapped. Goerne, without word, exited stage right. But this wasn’t a reflection on the quality of the singing – not at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite. So affecting was Goerne’s performance, and so involved were we as an audience in his harrowing journey, that applause seemed an inappropriate response. We were stunned into silence. Goerne’s onstage presence was powerful, and his voice ethereally beautiful. It is for these reasons that Goerne, and not headliner Quatuour Ébène, is front and centre in this recording. Although Goerne shines, Quatuor Ébène, joined by cellist Gautier Capuçon, gives a magnificent performance of the String Quintet in C major – one of Schubert’s finest pieces.

Accompanied by the expanded French string quartet, Goerne sings five Schubert lieder in arrangements by Raphaël Merlin. Franz Schubert, apparently a shy and private man, preferred the company of his fellow artists to that of the social elite. He and his friends would gather for ‘Schubertiades’ in his salon to share their music and art. Often Schubert would sing his latest compositions, accompanied by a friend at the piano, or himself on guitar. According to the CD liner notes, ‘We can be in no doubt that accompanying the lieder with a string quintet … is truly in the Schubertiade spirit’.

The combination of Goerne’s steely and controlled – but still poetic and subtle – voice with the energetic and tight string quintet is sublime. Die Götter Griechenlands (‘Greek gods’) is typically melancholic, and evocative of the beautiful world for which the singer yearns. The string accompaniment is hypnotic, and the bright timbre of the first violin compliments the mellowness of Goerne’s sound. An essential Schubert recording.

Alexandra Mathew