Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn) is the name given to the large collection of German folk poems collected by the poets Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano during the early years of the 19th century. The medieval romanticism of the Wunderhorn poems, with their stories of soldiers, maidens, country bumpkins, fishes, cuckoos and nightingales – some tragic, some lighthearted – strongly appealed to Mahler's imagination and altogether he composed 24 songs based on their texts.

The 13 songs on this disc were composed between 1892 and 1901, by which time Mahler had reached full maturity as a composer. Although the songs were conceived with an orchestral accompaniment in mind, Genz and Vignoles present the versions that Mahler composed for piano. Vignoles's pianism is so persuasive that one hardly misses the orchestral versions. In Revelge, for instance, his accompaniment to the song about the marching soldier has a suitably martial quality, while his playing of the lowest register of the piano to represent the drum rolls at the beginning of Der Tamboursg'sell is eerie and unforgettable.

Genz, meanwhile, provides a well-characterised interpretation, his voice superbly controlled both in the vehemence of the prisoner's defiance in Lied des Verfolgten im Turm and in the beautiful pianissimos of Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen. Occasionally, however, I had a sense of his vocal expressiveness being applied in a calculated way rather than arising from within the music itself. In Verlorne Müh, for example, Genz invests the exchanges between the girl and the boy with a knowing, exaggerated air, which rather undermines the quirky charm of Mahler's musical setting. Elsewhere, songs such as Urlicht are more natural but also a little reserved.

There are few complete recordings of Des Knaben Wunderhorn sung by a baritone with Mahler's original piano version accompaniment. The main competition comes from the recording made by Thomas Hampson and Geoffrey Parsons for Warner in the early 1990s. Turning to this version, I find the pianism less striking but feel a deeper expressiveness from Hampson. He may not quite match Genz's defiance in Lied des Verfolgten im Turm, but his projection of the girl's music in the same song is intensely poetic, and the close of Der Schwildwache Nachtlied has a deeply affecting quality which is missing from the Genz interpretation.

Hyperion's recording is very clear and present. The excellent booklet notes are by Roger Vignoles, and song texts are provided in German and English. This CD is certainly worth investigating for the revelatory playing of Vignoles, but it is Hampson's singing that brings one closer to the heart of Mahler's music.

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