Graham Johnson has accompanied Angelika Kirchschlager, Christine Schäfer, Simon Bode, Robert Holl and Christopher Maltman so far in Hyperion’s questing journey through all of Brahms’s songs. Now he and tenor Ian Bostridge breathe new life into Lieder und Gesänge, Op 32, Vier Lied, Op 96 and other individual items. The lovesick texts are somewhat overwrought and highly coloured to modern ears, but Bostridge is totally convincing, particularly in his wonderfully sensitive handling of the Op 96 collection. Johnson, that poet of the piano, underpins everything with just the right level of ardour – and he writes tremendous sleeve notes.
