Here, in all probability, is the basso cantante par excellence missing since the heyday of Samuel Ramey. The fine, resonant voice, wide in range, firm and even in delivery, is at home in a variety of styles. As an expressive artist, he seems as yet not to encompass the softer and deeper emotions – he gives a good, well studied perfomance of King Philip’s solo in Don Carlos but no personal touch suggests a real inner engagement. But he has authority and stature (almost too much for Leporello, whose Catalogue song opens the programme), and he is unfailingly lively. We know, from the outstanding Nozze di Figaro DVD (7/08), and perhaps from live acquaintance in the opera house, that he has a particularly attractive stage presence and that his acting has the easy effectiveness of a “natural”. In the biographical note we learn that to begin with “Schrott literally went knocking on doors”: one imagines he is going to be an extremely busy singer in the years immediately ahead.

To those of us who had known him only in his Mozartian roles, with their baritonal association, the repertoire here may come as something of a surprise. These are the great bass roles – Verdi’s Philip and Procida, the Mephistopheles of Gounod and Berlioz, the satanic Bertram, father of Robert le Diable himself. The upper range is indeed particularly impressive, a fact of which we are left in full possession as Bertram’s high F sharp rings in the ears at the recital’s somewhat abrupt conclusion. Yet, at present, the timbre is that of a true bass (and long may it remain so). Mention of Ramey as the obvious reference-point, incidentally, calls for a supplementary recital to show how Schrott fares with the florid writing of Handel and Rossini, which gave Ramey his crowning glory.

The recorded sound catches the voice well. In Berlioz the orchestra is in need of a subduing hand, in Gounod one more flexible and imaginative.