A little under two hundred years ago, Franz Schubert was a torchbearer at Beethoven’s funeral. By then, Schubert was already one of the figures marking the transition from the era of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven to that of the next generation of Viennese musicians and composers.

This notion of transition, or preparing to “hand over the torch”, has become an integral part of the ever more imaginative Oxford Lieder Festival, whose evening concerts this year generally begin with a mini-recital by musicians on the festival’s Emerging Artists programme. This time, it was the turn of soprano Karla Grant and pianist Jia Ning Ng. Both have already made their mark, whether on the operatic or concert stage in the UK and abroad, or as multiple prize-winners. It was not hard to see why.

They performed five strongly contrasting Schubert songs, ranging in emotion from the sad longing of “Heimliches Lieben” to the wickedly entertaining “Die Männer sind méchant!”. Karla Grant’s German and diction throughout were well-nigh perfect, complementing her beautiful tone, at times lyrical and intimate, at others joyous and exuberant. The delicacy of her higher register was captivating, her portrayal of first love and loss in Goethe’s poem “Erster Verlust” warm and mature. Jia Ning Ng was clearly alive to all the nuances of Schubert’s famously illustrative accompaniments, whether turning the great Steinway into a gently plucked lute (“An die Laute”), or rippling seamlessly as the flowers swayed in the breeze (“Die Blumensprache”). Both artists rose magnificently to the challenge of their showstopping final song, “Die Männer sind méchant!” (“Men are naughty!”), in which Karla Grant brought growing horror and hurt pride to her dawning realisation that the poet’s mother had been right all along about men. By the end she was turning the experience into mock condemnation of their behaviour, with a robustly humorous shriek on the final “méchant!”.

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This had opened the evening’s “Schubertiade”, the first such event having taken place in the early nineteenth century. These were informal, social gatherings held often at the homes of Schubert’s friends in Vienna, featuring his music in particular, and the Lieder Festival has brilliantly continued this tradition too. Sholto Kynoch set the atmosphere from the piano as the audience was settling, with a selection of the composer’s delightful waltzes, before he was joined by members of his Schubert & Co. ensemble.

Their programme began with a Haydn song that perfectly captured the mood of those happy gatherings of Schubert’s circle, the quartet of singers encouraging us (perhaps optimistically in the Holywell Music Room) to “live, love, drink, roister”. Soprano and tenor continued with Haydn in the evening’s only song in Italian (“I should like to know if you love me”), almost semi-staged, a serious, doubting, questioning duet that to everyone’s relief ended with love confirmed. There were affecting solos too from the start, including a deeply moving interpretation of Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”, the accompaniment’s broken chords suddenly giving way to the tap-tap perhaps of the blind boy’s stick. “Der Schmied” had the soloist singing wistfully of her beloved blacksmith as she passes by before ending with a carefree laugh (the poem, incidentally, was by Franz Lachner, one of those attending the Schubertiaden in Vienna). “Der zürnenden Diana” is a substantial song recounting the wrath of the goddess Diana – here the mellifluous melodic lines were sung heroically by the tenor, as befitted the text, although the sliding up to higher notes felt mannered and the intonation was occasionally insecure; the dramatic piano attack on “Your arrow hits the mark”, however, contrasted well with the insistent rhythm of Schubert’s accompaniment. The baritone brought a wide range of emotion to “Im Walde – Waldesnacht”, especially powerful in the low register reflecting the almost gothic atmosphere of night in the forest, menacing and hope-filled in turn, a voice of nobility supported by the vivid imagery conjured from the piano, restless, rushing wind, flickering flames.

The ensemble items were highlights too. “Des Tages Weihe” revealed a perfect blend of the four mixed voices, the vibrato nicely controlled, the richness of the key clearly relished in this consecration of the day. Schubert’s popular setting of Psalm 23 brought the two sopranos and two mezzo-sopranos together, their singing sweetly, comfortingly angelic. In “Gesang der Geister über den Wassern”, the soprano, mezzo, tenor and baritone as both soloists and ensemble were wonderfully evocative of the imagery of nature in Goethe’s majestic poetry as a metaphor for the soul, ending with a long, melting diminuendo. And always the musical expression of the text was paramount, as in the fearful, deathly calm sung by the trio in Václav Tomášek’s “Meeresstille”.

How good it was to hear “Italy” by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel (sister of Felix and rightly becoming better known in her own right today), sung with well-judged melodrama and humour by the tenor. “Bertas Lied in der Nacht” was a sort of sweet lullaby from a heavenly mezzo-soprano voice, and when the soprano sang without music, effortlessly soaring high in the entertaining song of the nymph and the fisherman, the impact was sensational. There was a delightful sense that the mezzo was positively mock-flirting with the pianist in the teasing “Geheimes” (“A secret”), so effective was her seeking only to give “a foretaste of the next sweet hour”, much to the audience’s evident amusement. In “Suleika I”, ecstasy constrasted with ethereal calm, hope and despair, before the mezzo joined the tenor for the mutual affection of their duet in “Suleika und Hatem”. The performance of “An die Musik” was an especially fine tribute to Schubert’s immortal setting of words by Franz von Schober (another of his Schubertiade friends), sung by the soprano with touching, heartfelt gratitude for that “beloved art”.

There could have been no more perfect conclusion to this Schubertiade than the composer’s “Ständchen”. This gorgeous serenade was sung with delectable precision and eager tenderness by the baritone and the echoing female voices, swelling and surging over the consummate musical metronome that was the accompaniment, until their magical rubato as it neared its conclusion.

This was more than a recital, rather an enchanting and very sociable get-together at which the guests enjoyed sensing the warm friendship of the artists: sopranos Anna Cavaliero and Katharina Ruckgäber, mezzo-sopranos Katie Bray and Marta Fontanals-Simmons, tenor Joshua Owen Mills and baritone Gareth Brynmor John. All stars, all friends, just as Schubert would have wished, encouraged with cheerful, welcoming, avuncular warmth and good humour by Sholto Kynoch –pianist, host and the creator of yet another inspiring festival, aptly entitled “Friendship in Song”. In the concluding words of “An die Musik”: “ich danke dir dafür” – thank you.