Another volume of Graham Johnson's Schubert edition, another Schubertiad. And that is a good thing: the opportunity to hear a disc of Schubert songs grouped with intelligence and taste and featuring different singers in the songs most appropriate to them is a wonderful thing. This diversity-in-unity approach works especially well in Schubert songs from a particular year; in this second 1815 Schubertiad, Johnson has set the ardent love song by ardent drinking song, passionate soprano with inebriated baritone. There is rarely ...
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Another volume of Graham Johnson's Schubert edition, another Schubertiad. And that is a good thing: the opportunity to hear a disc of Schubert songs grouped with intelligence and taste and featuring different singers in the songs most appropriate to them is a wonderful thing. This diversity-in-unity approach works especially well in Schubert songs from a particular year; in this second 1815 Schubertiad, Johnson has set the ardent love song by ardent drinking song, passionate soprano with inebriated baritone. There is rarely a dull moment -- how many drinking songs can one composer compose? -- in these often delightful and always superb performances of some of the greatest songs ever written. Johnson's program notes are certainly among the greatest ever written. Witty, intelligent, graceful, and always entertaining, one can have only one complaint about them: printing 47 pages of notes at 600 words per page can provoke acute eye fatigue. Another volume of the Schubert edition, another great volume of...
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