Album: Schubert, Die Schone Mullerin, (Orchid Classics)

James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook’s reading of Schubert’s earlier song cycle is more conventional than Padmore and Lewis’s Winterreise.

There’s a touching simplicity to Gilchrist’s delivery, though his tenor flutters under pressure and Tilbrook’s delicate, subtle accompaniment is too low in the mix. Most problematic is the lack of suspense: the jealous outburst of “Der Jäger” comes out of the blue, and though “Eifersucht und Stolz” and the “liebe/böse Farbe” songs are riveting, the narrator’s neurosis is revealed too late.