The centrepiece of Dietrich Henschel's recital, his first at the Wigmore for five years, was Brahms's Vier Ernste Gesänge, a work he was born to sing. Registering Brahms's shock at the death of Clara Schumann in 1896, this is music that hovers at the extremes of human experience - in territory, in other words, where the German baritone's artistry is at its most formidable and revealing.

Typically, however, he did something unexpected with it, expanding its range of reference beyond the usual examination of grief and spiritual solace. There was an undertone of religious fanaticism in the opening song, which he delivered with the fiery solemnity of a preacher. Only the flicker of uncertainty at the words "all is vanity" hinted at the emotional maelstrom into which he steered the rest of the cycle, as a gathering awareness of mortality undercut the arrogant certainty of the opening utterances. The calm of the ending, with its rapt meditation St Paul's words on the nature of love, was all the more moving for the nightmarish intensity of the preceding crisis. This was a shocking, radical performance that revealed Henschel at his best.

With pianist Fritz Schwinghammer matching every shift in Henschel's mood, the rest of the evening was equally remarkable. Brahms's Op 32 Songs, also addressed to Clara Schumann, explored a world in which desire, frustration and anger seemed inextricably fused. Two groups of Webern's settings of poems by Stefan George found Henschel at his expressive limits, deploying everything from a honeyed falsetto to a cavernous growl in his quest to find the emotional meaning behind the aphoristic texts. Songs by the little-known, Swiss-born composer Robert Gund brought narrative vividness and flashes of sly wit. Outstanding stuff, all of it, from a great artist who never ceases to astonish.