The German Lied is riding high right now thanks to a Rat Pack of up-and-coming baritones including the likes of André Schuen and Samuel Hasselhorn. The baby of the group, though judging by his recordings, wise beyond his years, is 31-year-old German baritone Konstantin Krimmel. Winner of several major prizes, he was a BBC New Generation Artist and since 2021, a member of Bavarian State Opera.

Mythos is his second recital for the French label Alpha Classics following on from 2019’s Saga. Both focus on 19th-century ballad songs with their doughty knights, moody kings and requisite array of ghoulies and ghosties, but the new disc narrows its focus to two acknowledged masters of the genre: Franz Schubert and Carl Loewe.

That Schubert, dead of syphilis at 31, went on to eternal fame and glory while Loewe, felled by a stroke at the respectable age of 71 remains a byway of the repertoire is a little unfair, especially when addressed by a master storyteller like Krimmel. Listen, for example, to Archibald Douglas, an 11-minute ballad in which an...