Coming relatively late to Lieder recitals, the tenor Mark Padmore has spent three years preparing to sing the great Schubert song cycles at Wigmore Hall — responding to a request from the hall’s new director, John Gilhooly, in his first piece of artistic scheduling.

All voice types tackle these masterpieces, famously Wunderlich, Fischer-Dieskau, Hotter and Schreier. The difference here is that Padmore has chosen a particular pianist for each work. He began with the Viennese Till Fellner, a fittingly youthful choice for Die schöne Müllerin, 20 songs about the naïve, fateful love of an apprentice miller for a pretty girl. As the cycle strode out in bold, impetuous major-key optimism, Fellner gave supple support, with firm left-hand delineation and surging right-hand effervescence, finding new, almost weightless textures for the music’s tumbling descent into despair.

Padmore characteristically plundered each poem for every last ounce of emotion from virile ecstasy to blank sorrow.

In the final Des Baches Wiegenlied (The Brook’s Lullaby), singer and pianist perfectly expressed the music’s caressing invitation to sink into the watery sleep of oblivion. It was breathtaking. Schubert couldn’t be better served.

May 21, Winterreise (Julius Drake), May 24, Schwanengesang (Roger Vignoles). On BBC Radio 3, 28 May, 4 June and 11 June.