The challenge of any Schubert recital is translating all that is implied by his miniature masterworks into a keyhole view of a rich though distant world. Does one assume the role of the empathetic storyteller such as Roderick Williams? Or enlarge the keyhole a bit by inhabiting the inner life of the song? Such is Alice Coote’s approach in this new collection of Schubert’s most loved songs that isn’t out to compete with Williams, the meticulous text readings of Ian Bostridge’s many Schubert recordings or the cultivated gentility of the famous Elisabeth Schwarzkopf/Edwin Fischer Schubert recital (EMI/Warner, 9/53), but is a revisionist alternative where dramatic narratives bubble underneath the simplest surfaces.

The programme is sequenced symmetrically: the 1815 version of ‘An den Mond’ (D259) and ‘Wandrers Nachtlied I’ are positioned as an introduction to a series of Schubert songs from the early ‘Erlkönig’ to the late ‘Ständchen’ but circles back to ‘Wandrers Nachtlied II’ and the 1819 version of ‘An den Mond’ (D296) that reflects with a more mature understanding of the tragedy of Goethe poem and includes an extra stanza that delves more poignantly into the poet’s sense of loss. Early-period Schubert is sung and heard not strictly on its own terms but from the viewpoint of what the composer would become. Songs such as ‘An Silvia’ and ‘Der Musensohn’ can seem a bit twee in certain performances; with Coote, that’s not possible, with her use of colour giving the songs an emotional narrative. She doesn’t sugar-coat anything.

‘Erlkönig’ has a heart-in-mouth intensity, while the beloved ‘Im Frühling’ isn’t sung just as a pastoral study with some dark clouds but as an inexorable slide into sorrow. Even ‘Ständchen’ has an underlying tension alluding to the kind of trembling that is mentioned in the final moment. Songs with multiple characters – ‘Erlkönig’, obviously, but also ‘Der Zwerg’ and even the voice of the lonely star in ‘Abendstern’ – are differentiated in ways that are well defined but also well judged. ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ goes quite deep and dark, the voice of death being half whispered, benevolent but not open to negotiation, the final note having an almost baritonal colouring, underscored by the funeral-march pace used by pianist Julius Drake.

In all selections, he is with her all the way, with generous (though not extravagant) tempo changes and eloquent tone colours that support what she is out to convey. In strophic songs, each verse has a very distinct colour, manner and speed. One wishes that these performances were available in something more than a sound-only medium. Coote is a particularly compelling presence in recital; I want to experience the whole package.

Finally, but less fortunately, one might wonder why an album titled ‘21 Songs’ has 50 separate tracks. Many of the songs have separate tracks for each stanza of the poem. A terrible idea. Downloads come with a nanosecond dropout between stanzas, which is especially annoying when Coote is singing a confiding pianissimo. And we’ve all dealt with platforms that load tracks out of order. With this collection, that would be a disaster.