Though Sarah Wegener has an extensive discography, the majority of her recordings are ensemble efforts with concert works ranging from Mozart to Penderecki. Here, she and Götz Payer follow up on their excellent Brahms-dominated 2017 solo recital ‘Into the Deepest Sea’ with repertoire that suits her well-focused, medium-weight soprano almost perfectly, and with a particular freshness that has perhaps comes from pandemic-imposed vocal rest.

The songs are all pre-Salome – late 19th-century, in other words – often with verse that’s very much of its time. Each song is clearly the work of a major composer but one who is out to be more charming than consequential. This may not sound like much of a recommendation. But in a triumph of sequencing, the collection is a chance to explore lesser-known Strauss in highly sympathetic circumstances. First and last songs are like sturdy bookends – Strauss’s early lyrical masterpiece ‘Zueignung’ at the beginning and, at the end, the touching direct leave-taking song ‘Befreit’ (with great Richard Dehmel verse). In the middle is the much-loved ‘Morgen!’, its blissful world acting like a destination to all that comes before it and giving extra substance to everything coming after.

Vocally, Wegener’s appealing voice isn’t the high-personality instrument of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau but draws the listener into the core of the music with unaffected linguistic authority. The tone is set in the album’s title-song, ‘Zueignung’: each strophe has its own deftly tinted amplitude with an unusual sense of the overall sweep, articulating the words with great comprehension but without undue highlighting along the way. Even the grand moments that so many singers have loved too well stay integrated into the song’s fabric. Similarly, Payer doesn’t oversell the accompaniment. This is not Strauss preparing for greater things to come.

Voice and piano are positioned with such thoughtful consideration of what actually reaches the ear that this recording is likely to be a welcome companion for years to come. One small problem is the song texts: they’re printed in German only. I downloaded the booklet to my phone and flipped back and forth to English translations on oxfordlieder.co.uk. Though not the most seamless solution, it encourages highly engaged listening that the performances more than reward.