The Complete Schubert Song Cycles : Matthias Goerne at Ravinia; Mon 27, Wed 29, Jul 31

It takes considerable passion to tackle a task this formidable: recording “the most beautiful” (according to the press release) Schubert songs on 12 discs from 2008 to 2011. Matthias Goerne is doing just that, documenting about a third of the Austrian’s 600 or so lieder. Currently, the 42-year-old, praised for his clarity and dynamic warmth, is on volume two. You’d be hard-pressed to find a contemporary German baritone better equipped to perform the three epic song cycles for which the composer is so well loved.

Goerne pairs up with a fellow Deutschlander, the delightfully ferocious-looking composer-pianist Christoph Eschenbach, for individual performances of Die schoene Muellerin, Winterreise and the posthumous collection Schwanengesang, spread across three nights at Ravinia. This is the only U.S. presentation of the cycles in the duo’s current, highly praised world tour. It’s not just down to damn good luck that Chicago gets to be the chosen city; Eschenbach spent nine years as the Ravinia fest’s music director.

While Schubert’s poetic song cycles scale the heights of elation, they also plumb the depths of loss, anxiety and loneliness. He was, after all, short, chubby, terminally ill and infamously unlucky in love—plenty of fuel for his compositional fire. Goerne and Eschenbach truly excel at expressing this darker side. Eschenbach struts his profound understanding of the master’s piano writing with phrasal elasticity and astonishing precision. Independently, both men bring something powerful to their readings of Schubert. Together, their combined force triggers a melancholy joy that achieves in music what only great poems accomplish in language.

• More Opera & Classical articles