Schumann: Liederkreis Op. 24 & Kernerlieder, Op. 35

German baritone Matthias Goerne has been a mainstay of lieder recitals and festivals since the 1990s, winning plaudits for his performances of songs by, mainly, Schubert, Schumann, and the great song composers of the Romantic era, animated by his keen intelligence and beautiful, rich voice. Like his mentors Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Goerne has recorded many of the classics of German song, and in 2019 tackled Robert Schumann’s Liederkreis Op. 24, one of the composer’s two sets of songs from 1840 based on poems by Heinrich Heine. That year—often called his “year of song”—Schumann dedicated himself to vocal music, including the Kernerlieder, also featured here. Darker and perhaps more emotionally complex than Liederkreis, these songs focus more on loneliness and lost love, calling on deeper resources of expression from its performers. Goerne is superb in the introspective world of a song like “Stirb, Lieb’ und Freud.” With the baritone joined by the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes—a fine song partner who here responds with great sensitivity—this is a magnificent song album.