Felicity Lott, Graham Johnson - Schubert: Complete Songs, Vol. 19 (The Hyperion Schubert Edition) (1993)

In the extravagant and excellent program book by Graham Johnson included with this volume of his Schubert edition, Johnson lists all of the songs Schubert wrote that mention flowers. The list runs to 12 columns of single-spaced type, or approximately 500 songs. In other words, there are flowers in nearly two-thirds of Schubert's vocal music, or, to put it another way, Johnson could have organized his Schubert edition according to floral taxonomy and still have covered most of his output. Instead, Johnson spread the floral wealth throughout the whole of his edition and dedicated only one volume to Schubert's flowers. But what a volume! As sung by the queen of English sopranos, Felicity Lott, the flower songs on this volume receive a royal treatment. Lott's light, clear, strong voice is perfect for the dainty songs, perfect for the blissful songs, perfect for the coy songs, and perfect for the rapturous songs. Her Nachtviolen (D. 752) is wondrously fair, her Die Sternennächte (D. 670) is magnificently radiant; her Auf dem Wasser zu singen (D. 774) is surpassingly lovely, and her two Suleikas (D. 720 and 717) are almost sexually ecstatic. Johnson is with her in all ways and in all things and together they are as two fruit trees grown together, bearing luscious and luminous fruit. And then there are Johnson's extensive and informative program notes, the acme and epitome of what program notes should be.