Passing through Nature to Eternity
Saturday 16 May / 20.15 - 22.00 hours
For centuries, nature has been described and sung about as nurturer, comforter and border guardian. She is powerful and vulnerable at the same time, reflecting ourselves. For composers such as Schubert, Fauré, Chausson and Debussy, it was therefore a great source of inspiration. After all, we cannot do without nature, which - with and without our intervention - determines our lives. Graham Johnson can be trusted to capture this in a lied programme that transcends time and style. Passing through Nature to Eternity is a journey through images of abundance and impermanence, of harmony and disruption. For despite all our knowledge and art, we ultimately remain in the hands of nature.
PASSING THROUGH NATURE TO ETERNITY ~ Shakespeare
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Lied ‘Ferne von der grossen Stadt’ D 483 (Pichler)
‘O Nature, I shall follow your maternal trail/The law that no mortal has yet broken unavenged’
An die Natur D 372 (Stollberg)
‘Sweet holy nature/ Let me walk upon your pathway’
Das Lied im Grünen D 917 (Reil)
‘In the green country side life is blissful’
Wehmut D 788 (Collin)
‘All that towers up towards heaven/ Shall vanish and perish’
Die Erde D 579b (Matthisson)
‘How Nature... brings forth, nurtures and creates growth’
Ganymed D 544 (Goethe)
‘How your glow envelops me in the morning radiance’
Täglich zu singen D 533 (Claudius)
‘I thank God I can see sun, mountains and the sea, leaves and grass’
Die Allmacht D 852 (Pyrker)
‘You hear it in the rustling of greenwood, you see it in the rustling of golden corn’
Die Sternenwelten D 307 (Fellinger)
‘High above the great unknown worlds revolve, bathed in the sun's light’
Morgenlied D 381 (Stolberg)
‘I can still enjoy life in this beautiful world’
Dem Unendlichen D 291 (Knockstock)
‘Sway, tree of life, to the music of the harps’
Song ‘Die Mutter Erde’ D 788 (Stolberg)
‘Mother Earth gathers us all, great and small, in her lap’.
break
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Dans la forêt de septembre (Mendès)
‘The ancient mournful forest blends with our melancholy’
Aurore (Hugo)
‘The wind speaks to the oaks, Water speaks to the springs, The breath of all things becomes voice!’
La mer est infini (from: L'Horizon chimérique; De la Ville de Mirmont)
‘The sea sings in the sun as it beats the cliffs’
Jardin nocturne (from: Mirages; Brimont)
‘I know, O garden, your keen caresses and your languid, torrid voluptuousness’
Paradis (from: La Chanson d'Ève; Van Lerberghe)
‘It is the first morning of creation .... A blue garden blooms’
WARNINGS OF CHANGE
Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
Le Temps de lilas (from: Poème de l'amour et de la mer; Bouchor)
‘The time for lilac and the time for roses will return no more this spring’
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Romance (Bourget)
‘Is there no fragrance remaining of the heavenly loveliness?’
Le Faune (Verlaine)
‘An ancient terracotta faun... predicting an unhappy sequel to these moments of calm’
Le Son du cor s'afflige (Verlaine)
‘The sound of the horn wails towards the woods... amidst the gusts of the fierce North wind’
EPILOGUE
Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
La Caravane (Gautier)
‘The human caravan of the Sahara of the world trudges on, burnt by the heat of day’
Great Hall
Evangelical Brotherhood
Zusterplein 12, 3703 CB Zeist
Sarah Fox / soprano
Sarah Fox received her bachelor's degree from the Royal Holloway College in London and her master's from the Royal College of Music. She won several awards and honours, including the Kathleen Ferrier Award, which brought her to the attention of the general public. Fox has performed several opera roles, but feels equally at home in other genres such as folkliederen and musical. She also has a great love for - especially the French - liedrepertoire. As a concert and opera singer, she gave performances worldwide, working with leading orchestras such as Academy of Ancient Music, Concerto Köln, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She has also been a guest at festivals, including the BBC Proms. The CD recordings she has collaborated on demonstrate her broad interest in vocal works.
Hugo Brady / tenor
As early as the age of eight, Hugo Brady entered the stage when he performed with the Youth Opera Company of the Royal Opera House in opera favourites such as La Bohème and Carmen, and even before he started his studies at the Royal College of Music (RCM), he won awards in various talent competitions. In 2022, he won the Junior Kathleen Ferrier Award. He is now at the RCM doing a master's degree in voice. Brady took master classes with Sir Thomas Allen, Bernarda Fink, Roderick Williams and Veronique Gens, among others. Last year, he was appointed Associate Artist of The Mozartists. He was also a ‘rising star’ with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, a Samling Artist and an Oxford Song Young Artist.
Armand Rabot / baritone
Armand Rabot studies at the Royal College of Music in London with Ben Johnson. In 2025 he was part of the Aix-en-Provence Festival Académie and in 2024 he participated in the Young Singers Project- during the Salzburg Festival. Rabot has performed several opera roles and is currently working at the Bayerische Staatsoper Opernstudio. Rabot has also been heard in several oratorios and regularly collaborates with the Liverpool Bach Collective. He participated in the St John Passion, the St Matthew Passion and performed numerous Bach cantatas. In the coming seasons, Rabot also has a full concert programme with performances at home and abroad, including a lecture-recital with Graham Johnson around liederen by Schubert and several operas.
Graham Johnson / pianist
Graham Johnson is a celebrated pianist, lied pianist and connoisseur of the works of several Romantic lied composers such as Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Music, his participation in Peter Pears' first master class brought him into contact with Benjamin Britten. It was there that his love for lied accompaniment was born. In 1976, he founded The Songmakers’ Almanac with the aim of bringing unknown lied repertoire to the attention of a wider audience.
Johnson regularly devises and accompanies concerts at Wigmore Hall, teaches lied accompaniment at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and has led a biennial Young Songmakers programme since 1985. He is also the author of several leading books on lied art and has several particularly well-received CD recordings to his credit.
Sarah Fox masters her voice confidently, like a surfer conquering a series of impossible waves. A self-assurance accompanied by a beautiful tone and extraordinary finesse.
Hugo Brady's admirable clarity of phrasing and beautiful timbre resulted in a narrative full of lyrical beauty and intent.
Armand Rabot has a strong, energetic presence and dynamism. When he sings, he, and by extension, I too, am totally in the moment.
Graham Johnson sat at the piano like a great German orchestra, producing colours and sounds with a sense of balance and architectural form that only enhanced and illuminated the searing intensity of Mahler's deep journey into our souls.