Baritone Andrè Schuen began his Deutsche Grammophon career in 2020 with a critically acclaimed reading of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, recorded with his duo partner Daniel Heide. In 2022, the pair added Schwanengesang to their discography, a recording that went on to win the Solo Song category in the 2023 Opus Klassik Awards. Now they complete their trilogy of Schubert’s major song cycles with a thoughtful and moving interpretation of the 24 inward-looking songs that make up the composer’s Winterreise.

Austrian composer Thomas Larcher’s new album features premiere recordings of three strongly contrasting works. The Times has hailed Larcher’s music as a world “of haunting landscapes and dreams, stylistically disparate but fused by the composer’s astonishing ear and quizzical attitude to traditional forms”, a description borne out by the compositions here. The Living Mountain, for soprano and ensemble, draws upon the memoir of the Scottish poet and nature writer Nan Shepherd. Unerzählt is an intimate song cycle for baritone and piano, deploying texts of German writer W.G. Sebald. And Ouroboros, named for the serpent of eternity, is a powerful piece for cello and chamber orchestra. Recorded in Munich and Weerberg in 2021 and 2022 and produced by Manfred Eicher, The Living Mountain is the fourth New Series album of Larcher’s compositions.