Graham Johnson & jonge liedzangers 2

'Die Musik nimmt nur, wie ein einströmendes Gas, den Luftballon mit in die Höhe.' This sentence contains the essence of Goethe's aesthetics of Lieder, a plea for simple strophic Lieder with sparing piano accompaniment. He wished the music to be given a secondary role, supporting the poem (the balloon). This statement was Goethe's reaction against the Schubertian word-music approach - fully-composed Lieder with suggestive piano accompaniment - which Goethe condemned as 'interfering details that do no justice to the poem'. Twelve years Schubert's junior and the same age as Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) did not take part in the progressive development of Romantic Lieder, but instead for the most part followed his instructor Zelter, one of the leading figures of the Berlin School that adhered to Goethe's Lieder ideal. Nonetheless, behind the apparently simple strophic Lieder by Mendelssohn lies a vast abundance of subtleties. He showed remarkable reserve when setting poems by Goethe and other great poets to music. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was not inclined to turn to the great masters either, given that their poems were already of such perfection that it would be impossible to add anything to them with music. Nonetheless, this did not prevent composers such as Robert Schumann (1810-1856) and Alban Berg from composing magnificent music to accompany texts by the most important writers of their time.