Our May Recording of the Month is a treasurable disc of Lieder from supple-voiced bass-baritone Christian Immler and in-demand pianist Helmut Deutsch called Be Still My Heart (Alpha Classics ALPHA1117). Their program juxtaposes songs by the barely remembered Robert Gund, friend of Brahms and Mahler, with those by the genre-hopping Wilhelm Grosz, best-known for the 1935 hit Red Sails in the Sunset.

“Gund established a sterling reputation for his Lieder, bringing to the musical idiom of the day imagination and style,” writes Justine Nguyen, comparing him with Grosz, who at 29 years his junior represents the rapid evolution of Viennese music in the early 1900s. A student of Schreker’s, Grosz was a prolific songwriter for the German cinema before he fled Nazi persecution in 1934, hoping to join fellow exiles in Hollywood.

“Immler embraces Gund’s knack for gratifying melody and rhythmic freedom, shaping the music beautifully, stretching a word here and colouring a phrase there,” continues Nguyen. “They’re just as at home in the songs of Grosz. Immler’s voice is particularly gorgeous here, but he never sacrifices incisiveness or edge.”

A brace of Grosz’s popular English...