High on the walls of the Craig y Nos theatre, built for the 19th-century diva Adelina Patti, are the names of great operatic composers embossed in gold. Not that of Schubert - his attempts at opera came to nothing - but his idol Beethoven is there.

Acting as a torchbearer at Beethoven's funeral in 1827, Schubert despaired of ever achieving anything worthy of comparison with the great man but, just weeks before, he had already completed the first part of his song-cycle Die Winterreise (Winter's Journey), a work that now stands as one of his greatest memorials.

In a very profound way, the anguish of the composer's self-doubt, both personal and creative, is mirrored in the tale of the lover who stumbles out into the winter's night, unhinged by the faithlessness of his beloved. Such was the raw, emotional power of this performance by the bass Robert Lloyd and pianist Julius Drake, that the intimate space of Patti's tiny theatre became almost claustrophobic. At every reminder of his betrayal, any consolation was dispelled, plunging us back into the maelstrom.

Lloyd's approach was unpretentious, but the implicit understanding of his partnership with Drake allowed Schubert's flights of imagination and his extraordinary colouring of Wilhem Müller's words to sing out, the resonance of Lloyd's bass and Drake's incisive playing often richly revealing the dramatic surges of tormented passion finely controlled.

Some highlights were predictable, Der Lindenbaum and the wonderfully expressive Frülingstraum, but in Die Krähe, where the lover has become aware of the crow (Hughes's "king of carrion") shadowing his progress, the tension was palpable and Drake's postlude magisterial.

In the final song, Der Leiermann, it was Drake's transformation of the bare fifth representing the hurdy-gurdy into something closer to the drum beat of a funeral procession that gave a sinister edge to Lloyd's subtle portrayal of the final escape into unreality. A sobering end to a warm summer's night.