× Disc IV highlights the strong vocal tradition Brahms inherited from Franz Schubert. The perennially beloved Liebeslieder Waltzes contain all the hallmarks of Brahms’s vocal oeuvre: warmth, intimacy, expressive nuance, and beguiling lyricism; the unique scoring of the Opus 91 Songs for Mezzo-Soprano, Viola, and Piano adds to these qualities an exquisite melancholy. Rachmaninov’s impassioned Vocalise echoes the Romantic lyricism of Brahms’s lieder, whereas Schubert’s Notturno in E-flat Major foreshadows these Romantic leanings. Schumann’s evocative Fairy Tales echoes the Lied ohne Worte (song without words) genre, innovated by another master of the nineteenth century, Felix Mendelssohn.