“The mystery of the ballad comes from the way it is told” - Goethe. This fascinating repertory requires the performer to play each of the characters as he or she would in an opera. Who better than Stéphane Degout to take up the challenge of plunging into the heart of German Romanticism? Fresh from winning a Victoire de la Musique in 2019, the French baritone truly embodies each of the protagonists in these shattering miniature dramas. Beside him here are a longstanding partner and two exceptional guests.

The French division of the massive EMI corporation has released a compendium called Les Introuvables de Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (EMI 68509, six CDs), and it contains so much outstanding material that one feels churlish complaining about what it lacks. But here we go. These six discs contain more than 125 lieder, ballads, cantatas and songs – primarily in German, but also in French, Italian, Latin and English – recorded mostly in the 1950s and '60s when Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's voice was one of the wonders of the musical universe.

The young German baritone Konstantin Krimmel won the prestigious Preis des Deutschen Musikwettbewerbs in 2019, in addition to the Helmut Deutsch Prize. He joins Alpha for a number of recordings, starting with this programme of lieder conceived with his longstanding partner, the pianist Doriana Tchakarova. This lover of words, a particularly expressive performer in concert, wanted to tell a story for his first album: he chose to record a selection of ballads, because they are genuine operas in just a few minutes… mini-sagas that permit great interpretative freedom. Among the great poets present here are Schiller, Goethe and Heinrich Heine.