Presented by GRAHAM JOHNSON
with video editing by JAVIER ARREBOLA
PART ONE
World-renowned pianist and scholar Graham Johnson explores the world of Western art song in 1921. In this first installment of a two-part lecture, Mr. Johnson discusses the musical and cultural scene of the decades leading to 1921, and focuses on the work of composers from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Great Britain. Video-lecture collated & edited by pianist Javier Arrebola.
PART TWO
World-renowned pianist and scholar Graham Johnson continues his exploration of Western art song in 1921. In this second installment of a two-part lecture, Mr. Johnson focuses on the work of composers from Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the United States of America, Russia and France. Video-lecture collated & edited by pianist Javier Arrebola.
Nadia Boulanger
RESOURCES
Recommended Texts
Susan Youens’s Hugo Wolf: The Vocal Music
Richard Stokes’s The Complete Songs of Hugo Wolf
Mr. Johnson’s Gabriel Fauré: The Songs and their Poets
Mr. Johnson’s Poulenc: The Life in the Songs
Mr. Johnson’s A French Song Companion
Jeanice Brooks’s Nadia Boulanger and Her World
Peter Burkholder’s Charles Ives: The Ideas Behind the Music
Recordings
Fauré’s L’Horizon Chimérique performed by SongFest’s beloved faculty member Sanford Sylvan and pianist David Breitman
A Shropshire Lad: Complete in Verse and Song and Mr. Johnson’s liner notes
The Songs of John Ireland and Mr. Johnson’s liner notes
About Mr. Johnson
"That peerless song accompanist” (Daily Telegraph) Graham Johnson formed the Songmakers' Almanac and has appeared in recital with Sir Thomas Allen, Victoria de los Angeles, Elly Ameling, Arleen Auger, Ian Bostridge, Brigitte Fassbaender, Matthias Goerne, Thomas Hampson, Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirchschlager, Philip Langridge, Serge Leiferkus, Dame Felicity Lott, Christopher Maltman, Edith Mathis, Ann Murray, Lucia Popp, Christoph Prégardien, Dame Margaret Price, Thomas Quastoff, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Dorothea Röschmann, Kate Royal, Christine Schaefer, Peter Schreier, Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Sarah Walker.
His relationship with Wigmore Hall is a special one; he devised and accompanied concerts for the hall’s re-opening series in 1992 and its centenary celebrations of 2001. As Senior Professor of Accompaniment at GSMD, he has led a biennial scheme for Young Songmakers since 1985. Many recordings for Hyperion include the entire Schubert and Schumann Lieder. He has also recorded for Sony, BMG, Harmonia Mundi, Forlane, EMI and DG. Awards include the Gramophone solo vocal award with Dame Janet Baker (1989), Ian Bostridge (1996), Christine Schäfer (1997) and Magdalena Kozena (2001). He is author of: The Songmakers’ Almanac; Twenty years of recitals in London (Thames Publishing, 1996); The French Song Companion (Oxford University Press, 2000); The Vocal Music of Benjamin Britten; Gabriel Faure - the Songs and their Poets; Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs (Yale University Press, 2014).
Graham Johnson was made an OBE in the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours list, created Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Government in 2002, made an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2010, and awarded the Wigmore Hall Medal in 2013. He received Honorary Doctorates from Durham University, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. He was awarded the Hugo Wolf Medal in 2014 for his services to the art of song. Most recently, in early 2021, Mr. Johnson was awarded the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany for his services to German art song.