Beethoven’s importance as the creator of monumental orchestral works and of substantial chamber music and solo sonatas is so great that his rich song oeuvre is often hardly even noticed. But his Lieder offer a highly entertaining repertoire in which love songs and humorous songs alternate with serious pieces of philosophical or religious subject matter. Goethe, Claudius, Herder, Lessing, Gellert and Rousseau are among the authors whose poems he set.

In this way, we are offered a panorama of ...