This highly personal selection of Schubert songs from peerless baritone Christian Gerhaher is perhaps epitomised in his approach to Frühlingsglaube (Faith in Spring), at once intensely optimistic for a brighter future for the world and yet quietly introspective and unaccountably sad. Schubert was 23 when he wrote it, unaware that he had only eight years to live; Gerhaher invests the song with that knowledge and breaks our hearts. Beautifully judged playing from pianist Gerold Huber supports the silky lightness of Gerhaher at his most intimate in these 24 songs; though there are flashes of steel beneath the gossamer that are all the more exciting for their sparse deployment.