Julian Prégardien, son of the famous German tenor-turned-baritone Christoph Prégardien, has teamed up with fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout to offer listeners a fresh, new perspective on Schubert’s evergreen tale of love and loss, Die Schöne Mullerin. 

Contextually, this project offers some intriguing intersections. Late last century, the older Prégardien recorded this cycle with Andreas Staier, well known for his advocacy of the fortepiano, while more recently Bezuidenhout has collaborated with English tenor Mark Padmore, most notably in an account of Schubert’s other great cycle, Winterreise. Burrowing a little further down this rabbit hole, it should also be noted that Padmore’s “conventional” recording of Die Schöne Mullerin with pianist Paul Lewis is a many-splendoured thing.

Returning to the recording at hand, this beautiful mill girl is unlike any other, with both singer and pianist offering significantly audible departures from previous interpretations, driven by a desire for more historically informed practices.

Bezuidenhout plays a six-and-a-half octave fortepiano fashioned after an 1825 instrument by the famous Viennese maker Conrad Graf. Apart from a generally more delicate sound, the...