'The idea that Schubert can cohabit lieder recitals in “dialogue” with complementary song settings is not new. But this one, in which songs from the posthumously-published Schwanengesang are reordered and interspersed with equally questioning and personal poetry by composer Errollyn Wallen, is both intuitive and potent. It’s also a dynamic coupling, Wallen having given carte blanche to baritone Julien Van Mellaerts and pianist Dylan Perez to present her collection, The Lake, in any format they wish. For this recording the ordering of both the Schubert and Wallen interact to tell a unique story. You hear in Wallen’s songs music that is often powerfully elemental, hearteningly beautiful, even teasingly inconclusive, serving up a contemporary reaction to the spiritual disquiet of Schubert’s Rellstab, Heine and Seidl settings. A magical segue from Wallen’s Courage - where the subject finds internal peace - to Schubert’s haunting Der Doppelgänger concludes a thoughtful, reflective performance.'

★★★★

'her music grows just as naturally out of Schubert’s as his sheds illumination on hers. The emergence of her ‘Ready’ out of Schubert’s ‘Kriegers Ahnung’, as if colouring the echoes of the warrior’s anxious cries into the night, is simply gorgeous. The shift in viewpoint, from that of a soldier to that of an uncertain artist, that Wallen’s words provide is pregnant with suggestion. Just as important to effects like these, of course, is Mellaerts’ and Perez’s sequencing, which is throughout attuned to continuities of tone, texture and mood.

There have been musically more radical approaches to this kind of Schubert+ recital ... But few have done it quite as sensitively or as thoughtfully as Wallen, Van Mellaerts and Perez do here.'