For many years a highlight of the Barbican's programming has been the surveys of composers' works put on by the London Symphony Orchestra and others. It is a change to find a performer heading a strand of concerts, as in the series cryptically entitled "Homeward Bound", planned around the tenor Ian Bostridge.

Over two seasons this is reaching into every corner of what Bostridge sings, from Elizabethan song to Britten's operas. There had to be a place for Schubert's Lieder, since that is how Bostridge made his reputation, and at Monday's recital he set out to climb the peak of this repertoire along with soprano Dorothea Röschmann and baritone Thomas Quasthoff.

Strong climbing boots and the will to get to the top were needed. It was not only that this was a longer recital than usual, the first half alone lasting nearly 80 minutes; the choice of songs was also challenging. A focus on Schubert's Goethe settings undeniably brought us lofty music, but the Harper's loneliness, Mignon's suffering and Gretchen's madness and death added up to a pretty desolate evening.

Bostridge opened with the three Harper songs, sung in his most irritatingly self-conscious style. Notes were squeezed out individually, as if down a toothpaste tube, and the words did not join together into sentences. Röschmann's way with Schubert was simpler. The songs were delivered with clear words, a firm vocal line and a feeling for drama, where appropriate. Gretchen's spinning song, accompanied most imaginatively by Julius Drake, whirled itself into a frenzy.

It was Quasthoff, however, who brought authority to the evening. The straightforward strength of his singing should not disguise the immediacy with which he connects to the poetry. A song like the long, philosophical "Grenzen der Menschheit", most implacable of all Schubert's Goethe settings, became truly momentous. A couple of light-hearted ensembles were included to lighten the tone - that obscure Wedding Feast trio has been dug up in London before and was not worth hearing twice - but nothing could dilute the impact of Quasthoff at his most searing. ****

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