For English-speaking readers at large, ‘Johnsonian’ is no doubt a term still signifying the great lexicographer; for Gramophone readers it probably means the great accompanist, scholar and compiler of programmes. This new programme is very Johnsonian. It devises headings and groups (‘Country Courtship’ to ‘Children’s Corner’), introduces charming things we would never have thought of for ourselves, and still finds room for the favourites whose absence would bring disappointment. On this occasion, and rather unusually, he does not write the programme notes himself, but that job is very capably taken over by Joanna Wyld, who uses her limited space to talk in lively particularities rather than limp generalisations.

Felicity Lott sings delightfully as ever, every note true in pitch, high notes (such as the A at the end of Go not, happy day) beautifully taken, diction clear and natural, humour (in the children’s songs) lightly played and not overdone. Johnson himself has always something fresh in perception and personal in touch. His opening bars in Parry’s O mistress mine, which is the first song in the programme, made me smile: a hasty snatching-up of the lute and an urgent strumming to stop her getting far in her roving and out of true love’s reach. He’s marvellous, too, in Go not, happy day, the piano part so much more than a vague ripple – it’s a happy day that has been sunning itself to the rhythms of Latin-America, pointing them up every now and then with a mischievously employed left hand. But all of these songs (or nearly all) have in them something of the unexpected. You might think not: surely you know what Sir Hubert Parry and dear old Elgar are going to do next. But you don’t: try it and see.