Complete Brahms Songs

Buoyed by Johnson’s acutely judged accompaniments, the fresh-toned young soprano Harriet Burns, on her CD debut, spins a pure line and responds sensitively to the echt-Brahmsian moods of loneliness,... — Gramophone Magazine, October 2019 More…

Maltman and the ever-sensitive Johnson...make a compelling, illuminating partnership. Maltman's mellow baritone,with its distinctively plangent, tenorish upper register, is always easy on the... — Gramophone Magazine, October 2014 More…

Bode sings [Sehnsucht and the Wiegenlied] with a fine sense of artistry and wonderment. Johnson takes care over his placing of Brahms's many folksong settings within this series, inserting a... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2012, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Holl's true bass register resonates eloquently with this programme of very serious songs...Holl has the ability to draw the listener in...For the Four Serious Songs themselves, Holl brings a... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2012, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Johnson is alive to every juicy nuance of the richly detailed accompaniments. And although I was occasionally distracted by Appl’s closed vowels, which sometimes robbed the poetry of its immediacy,... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2018, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Graham Johnson, once again, is both mastermind and pianist, and, as ever, his accompanying notes and essays are as witty and richly allusive as his playing...This recital is beautifully shaped. — BBC Music Magazine, July 2010, 4 out of 5 stars More…

[in the Ophelia songs] Schäfer is ideally cast: she sings them very much as a singing actress would, artful in her apparent artlessness, and meticulous of diction...[the Madchenlieder's] pungent... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2011, 4 out of 5 stars More…