The Oxford Lieder Festival got off to a dazzling start with a feast of Schubert, focusing on the magnificent output from the final five years of his life, when he was slowly and painfully dying of syphilis. From this period came some of his most celebrated and emotionally charged works, from the despairing Winterreise to the heartbreak of unrequited love in Die schöne Müllerin, as well as some of his lesser known songs.

In fact, the weekend was not so much a feast as a banquet; a delectable concoction that demonstrated Schubert’s supreme craftsmanship, both as a tunesmith and for his extraordinary interpretative skills that saw him turn the words of poets such as Muller, Schiller, Schulze and others into works of powerful, dramatic intensity.

Baritone Gary Griffiths served up a tasty hors d’oeuvres on Saturday afternoon with the ever-popular Winterreise, and he captured the acute despair of the wanderer with great conviction. This was an intelligent and informed interpretation, delivered with musical sensitivity, fluent phrasing and linguistic clarity.

The main Saturday evening concert was a selection of Schubert’s part songs, performed by a particularly fine quartet of singers — soprano Raphaela Papadakis, mezzo Victoria Simmonds, tenor Nicky Spence and baritone Mark Stone. Uniformly excellent, all four singers supplied fine solo moments, but when blended together, in songs such as Gebet, the result was enthralling.

The highlight of the weekend for me was Daniel Norman’s breathtakingly powerful Schwanengesang — if you were looking for the ‘wow factor’, here it was. With his full-bodied tenor voice and operatic theatricality, Norman could breathe life into a shopping list; in his hands, Schubert’s soul-searching songs became miniature works of art, each seized upon with relish, and delivered with exceptional eloquence and dramatic sensibility. Every emotion was vividly portrayed, from tenderness, yearning and despair to anguish and a passion that was almost ferocious in its intensity. This was a captivating and mesmerising performance.

Also included in the evening was the gorgeous Auf dem Strom, with accompaniment of exceptional delicacy from horn player Angela Barnes. Festival founder Sholto Kynoch provided piano accompaniment for most of the weekend’s concerts, playing with his customary empathy and flair.

The festival continues until October 29, with appearances by Sir Thomas Allen, James Gilchrist, Roderick Williams, Dame Felicity Lott and Sarah Connolly, among others. A special Swedish weekend starts tomorrow. For full details, visit www.oxfordlieder.co.uk.