The last private pupil of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Benjamin Appl has already been hailed as ‘Lieder royalty’ (The Spectator). Further proof comes with this distinguished Hyperion debut: volume 7 of our complete Brahms songs.

Ian Bostridge brings his characterful lyricism, and singing of beautiful intelligence, to a welcome sixth volume in Graham Johnson’s comprehensive series.

A new recording from renowned recitalist and winner of the Lieder Prize at the 1997 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, Christopher Maltman. Graham Johnson is both accompanist and curator of this series that presents the entire piano-accompanied songs and vocal works of Johannes Brahms.

Graham Johnson’s latest Lieder project for Hyperion reaches its fourth volume. Brahms is of course a giant of the Romantic era but his songs and vocal works are rather less well known than much of his other music. There is so much to discover and enjoy in the beautiful, often elegiac melodies and characteristic piano writing.

Following the iconic series of the complete songs of Schubert and Schumann, Graham Johnson further demonstrates the phenomenal depth of his knowledge in the expert programming of this recital. Each disc in the series represents a different journey through the repertoire, and thus through Brahms’s life. This new volume is sensitively balanced, the opening and closing folksong transcriptions possessing beguiling charm and the five songs of Op 49 being performed in their entirety.

Following the iconic series of the complete songs of Schubert and Schumann, Graham Johnson’s latest enterprise traverses the complete songs of Brahms. He is joined here on Volume 2 by the wonderful Christine Schäfer, whose contribution to the Schumann song series won a prestigious Gramophone Award.

Graham Johnson’s complete Schubert and Schumann songs series for Hyperion are landmarks in the history of recorded music. Now this indefatigable performer and scholar turns to the songs and vocal works of Brahms. Each disc of this Hyperion edition takes a journey through Brahms’s career. The songs are not quite presented in chronological order but they do appear here in the order that the songs were presented to the world. Each recital represents a different journey through the repertoire (and thus through Brahms’s life). In a number of these Hyperion recitals an opus number will be presented in its entirety (in the case of this disc, Op 48). The folksongs of 1894 will be shared between all the singers in the series.

Dvorák's Love Songs were drawn from his early composition Cypresses, a set of 18 songs set to the poetry of Gustav Pfleger-Moravsky. The texts are pretty much typical of 19th century love poems, while Dvorák's music is surprisingly commonplace for a composer of such rich melodic gifts. The first few measures of New Miniatures instantly identify them as being written by Martinu, with their spiky harmonies and syncopated rhythms. Indeed, it's these rarely heard songs that take up the majority of this disc, a fortunate thing for us and for this strangely underperformed major 20th-century composer.

If your ideal vocal recording places the performer next to your seat and your ideal vocal performance has the performer singing directly into your ear, this disc by mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozená will be just about ideal. No matter what the repertoire – and Kozená performs everything from Bach to Gounod to Shostakovich – and no matter what the context – and Kozená takes on everything from song to opera to oratorio – Kozená is right next to the listener, singing straight into his/her ear. Given her exceedingly warm tone, her extremely rich delivery, and her extraordinarily sibilant pronunciation, Kozená's intimate delivery may be too much for those with heart conditions or those all too easily affected by singers. But for those made of sterner stuff, Kozená's performances here will be the stuff dreams are made of.

It is more or less axiomatic now that anything Graham Johnson turns his hand to will be perfectly realised, and here it proves once again to be the case. That he is accompanying eight of the finest voices in the young and middle generations of British singers can only have helped. Hyperion supplies full texts and a recorded sound of complete fidelity. These are, moreover, well filled discs. It is plain that nothing short of a strong recommendation will do.

Mendelssohn's songs with words are bound to invite comparison with his Songs Without. Those 48 elegant piano pieces have often been viewed as being a little lacking in variety and as being a walk on the mild side. This disc contains 24 songs carolled by Margaret Price to a tasteful accompaniment from Graham Johnson. The performers take us back to the familiar world of the Lieder Ohne Worte, and rightly so. The songs range from the composer's teens to late in his brief career, and to my ears the numbers selected improve in general as they go along, and the performances improve along with them.

In his notes Graham Johnson says that what we have always lacked is a convincing way of performing late Schumann songs, often spare in texture and elusive in style. Well, he and Keenlyside seem to have found one here in their wholly admirable versions of the very different Opp 98a and 117. The Op 98a settings of the Harper's outpourings from Wilhelm Meister have always stood in the shade of those by Schubert and Wolf. This pair show incontrovertibly that there's much to be said for Schumann's versions, capturing the essence of the old man's sad musings, as set by the composer in an imaginative, free way, alert to every nuance in the texts.

Perfectly judged performances, intelligently planned recitals, informative booklet notes and, throughout, accompaniments from a true master of the art: this final release in the songs of Brahms epitomizes all the familiar virtues which have distinguished the series.

The heady, youthful tenor of Robin Tritschler is our guide through more of those musical riches which constitute Brahms’s complete song output. Volume 9 is a rewarding journey spanning more than three decades of the composer’s creative life.

Volume 8 of our complete Brahms songs proves the ideal platform for Harriet Burns in her debut album. As usual, Graham Johnson’s scholarly booklet notes are an indispensable companion.