Graham Johnson & Geraldine McGreevy

Pianist Graham Johnson is the specialist in Schubert Lieder. He has recorded more than six hundred of the Lieder onto CD (that's 37 disks!), furnishing the series with highly interesting liner essays, in which he discusses the origins of the Lieder and the relationship between the words and music. Since then he has reworked all his writings into a veritable 'Schubert Lieder Encyclopedia'. Here at deSingel, Graham Johnson is addressing Schubert's world of Lieder in six lecture recitals spread over three seasons. For two evenings last season, we hung on his every word during his utterly absorbing lectures on 'Die schöne Müllerin' and 'Winterreise'. In his third lecture (7 October), Johnson focuses on Schubert's settings of pieces by Goethe, the 'Dichterfürst', including works from 'Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre' and the 'West-Östlicher Divan'. In his fourth lecture recital (8 October) he will discuss the songs Schubert wrote with words by his circle of friends in Vienna, with Johann Mayrhofer to the fore, followed by Franz von Schober, Josef von Spaun and Franz von Schlechta. The soprano Geraldine McGreevy and baritone Ben Appl will sing extracts and complete songs, with of course Graham Johnson at the grand.