"I hope that, before a judge, I could provide evidence of my good sense and my good taste" was Beethoven's lukewarm comment on his art song output. Only toward the end of his life did Beethoven develop a song language comparable in its innovation to his symphonies, piano sonatas, and string quartets; An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98 (1816), virtually invented the genre of the song cycle. Performers have cherry-picked the melodic gem Adelaide (1795) and a few other songs, but German baritone Dietrich Henschel here sets out instead to evaluate Beethoven as a song composer and offers many insights. Henschel has Fischer-Dieskau's effortless way of handling notes in many parts of his range; even if he doesn't match the almost metaphysical lyricism of Fischer-Dieskau's An die ferne Geliebte, he's an adept and attractive singer with plenty of power in reserve. Tempos on several songs are quick but not indefensible. The disc offers a varied selection from among Beethoven's more than 80 songs. Some sound like proto-operatic experiments; some are rooted in eighteenth century musical language. One set of six songs, Op. 48, dates from around the time of the "Eroica" symphony; Beethoven sets a group of stormy, quasi-religious texts that sound in parts like passages of the Heiligenstadt Testament, the anguished but defiant unmailed letter he wrote as he came to terms with his encroaching deafness. Accompanist Michael Schäfer comes to the fore on three non-vocal selections -- a good idea in that the Polonaise, Op. 89 and Fantaisie, Op. 77, parallel in their semi-conventional language many of the songs included. But Schäfer doesn't deliver the pianistic thrills needed in these works, which drew on Beethoven's own prodigious keyboard talents. Nevertheless, the package as a whole is recommended to anyone curious about the lesser-known corners of the Beethoven catalog.