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Retrospective I

JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON Retrospective I

A year has passed since the untimely death of Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. In tribute to the exceptional artist and musical storyteller, Deutsche

Johann Johannson Retrospective I

A year has passed since the untimely death of Icelandic composer J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson. In tribute to the exceptional artist and musical storyteller, Deutsche Grammophon celebrates the life and music of J&oacute;hannsson with a two-volume retrospective edition. The deluxe hardcover book edition features seven albums of J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s earlier works, including <a href="https://dg.lnk.to/MinersHymns">The Miners&rsquo; Hymns</a>, <a href="https://dg.lnk.to/CopenhagenDreams">Copenhagen Dreams</a>, <a href="https://dg.lnk.to/VirthuleguForsetar">Vir&eth;ulegu Forsetar</a>, and the previously unreleased soundtrack to the documentary <a href="https://dg.lnk.to/whiteblackboy">White Black Boy</a>. It's the first part of a two-volume release with RETROSPECTIVE II&nbsp;being released in 2020.
&nbsp;The first part is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MPK2XTX/">out now.</a>

Friendship Survival Guide: Jóhann Jóhannsson and Adam Wiltzie Complete a Shared Legacy

Some albums tell a story not only of music, but of a friendship. Friendship Survival Guide, the joint work of Icelandic composer J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson and American sound artist <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/en-en/collections/adam-wiltzie">Adam Wiltzie</a>, was released on 18 September 2026 by Deutsche Grammophon. It gathers recordings made during shared sessions between 2013 and 2017, which Wiltzie carefully continued and completed after the death of his companion. Read more about their friendship and the making of the album in this <a href="https://www.grainsmusic.com/articles/adam-wiltzie-johann-johannsson-the-sound-of-friendship-280241">interview with Adam Wiltzie on grains</a>.
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h2>Friendship Survival Guide: A Collaboration Years in the Making</h2>
J&oacute;hannsson and Wiltzie were bound by far more than a single project. The two worked closely together for over a decade: Wiltzie was part of J&oacute;hannsson's live band and served as his sound engineer before they first wrote and recorded together in 2013, among other things for the film score to The Theory of Everything. Their ideas often took shape in separate studios, J&oacute;hannsson in Berlin, Wiltzie in Belgium, in an easy and playful exchange. With the blessing of J&oacute;hannsson's family, Wiltzie later returned to these tapes to finish what had been started, in the spirit of his friend.
<h2>&nbsp;</h2>
<h2>The Album: Orchestral Breadth, Electronics and Floating Drones</h2>
Sonically, the album moves through a wide open space: sustained orchestral textures meet electronic layers and long, floating drones. Wiltzie himself describes the music as orchestral psychedelic drone compositions. Despite all the later work, the intimacy of the original sessions remains audible, enriched by subtle additions that stay true to the character of the material. Contributions from guests such as Tim Hecker, Francesco Donadello and Steve Albini deepen this sound world further. The result is a work that invites listeners to surrender to a slowly unfolding soundscape.
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h2>J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson and Adam Wiltzie: Two Sound Worlds, One Friendship</h2>
J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson ranks among the most influential film composers of his generation. His music for films such as Sicario, Arrival and The Theory of Everything combined orchestral depth with electronic exploration. In 2016 his acclaimed album Orph&eacute;e appeared on Deutsche Grammophon, before the Icelandic artist passed away in 2018.
Adam Wiltzie, in turn, is a central figure in contemporary ambient and drone music, as co-founder of Stars of the Lid (together with Brian McBride) and as one half of the duo A Winged Victory for the Sullen. In Friendship Survival Guide these two signatures merge into a shared whole. Listeners wishing to explore J&oacute;hannsson's musical language at the piano will find another way in through Alice Sara Ott's album <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/en-en/products/alice-sara-ott-johann-johannsson-piano-works-110344">J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson: Piano Works</a>.
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h2>Friendship Survival Guide on Vinyl, CD and in Hi-Res Audio</h2>
Friendship Survival Guide is available in several editions. Alongside the <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/en-en/products/johann-johannsson-friendship-survival-guide-120300">CD</a>, the album is available on <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/en-en/products/johann-johannsson-friendship-survival-guide-120296">vinyl</a>, including an edition that pairs the LP with a Hi-Res audio download. This lets you experience the work both on the turntable and in high-resolution digital sound.
An album about friendship and the enduring life of music: Friendship Survival Guide by J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson and Adam Wiltzie is available from Deutsche Grammophon.
➤ Order now at the <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/en-en">DG Store</a> and discover <a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/en-en/collections/johann-johannsson">more from J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson</a>.

Friendship Survival Guide Sees Adam Wiltzie Complete a Decade-Old Collaboration with the Late Jóhann Jóhannsson 

Legendary ambient drone artist Adam Wiltzie salutes his longtime friend, the award-winning composer&nbsp;J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson&nbsp;by finishing the album the pair started in 2013
Additional contributions to Friendship Survival Guide come from electronic musician Tim Hecker, the late producer Steve Albini and Grammy Award winning engineer, Francesco Donadello
The album will be released on 18 September 2026, listen&nbsp;to the first pre-release single&nbsp;White Gloves &amp; Turtlenecks&nbsp;<a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdg.lnk.to%2FFriendshipSurvivalGuide&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cconstanze.busch%40umusic.com%7Cd849013a52e640e657c108dee70814fe%7Cbbcb6b2f8c7c4e2486e46c36fed00b78%7C1%7C0%7C639202219064766946%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=7Ovznu5%2BMvsLs%2BdWGuqQYWyYRWY4Yxy5IFKVXuupYTk%3D&amp;reserved=0">here</a>.
&ldquo;Our friendship is the story here, (&hellip;) J&oacute;hann&rsquo;s not there anymore, but this artifact we created together, is alive and it's incredible. I could never have done it without him.&ldquo;&nbsp;&ndash; Adam Wiltzie
DG releases crystal-clear vinyl reissue of J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s celebrated&nbsp;Orph&eacute;e&nbsp;for its 10th anniversary,
out 16 October
&nbsp;
On&nbsp;September 18th,&nbsp;Deutsche Grammophon&nbsp;will release&nbsp;Friendship Survival Guide, an album of orchestral psychedelic drone compositions by&nbsp;Adam Wiltzie&nbsp;and the late&nbsp;J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson. Wiltzie, co-founder of the now-legendary drone duo Stars of the Lid, and J&oacute;hannsson, the award-winning composer and orchestrator, shared a decade-long friendship and creative partnership, writing, performing and recording together prior to the latter&rsquo;s tragic passing in 2018.&nbsp;Friendship Survival Guide&nbsp;stems from the pair&rsquo;s numerous 2013-17 studio collaborations on sessions for J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s scores of the 2014 Stephen Hawking biopic&nbsp;The Theory of Everything&nbsp;(for which J&oacute;hann won a Golden Globe) and director Dennis Villeneuve&rsquo;s 2017 sci-fi thriller&nbsp;Arrival&nbsp;(for which he garnered an Academy Award nomination). The album will be available digitally, on CD and on black vinyl. Ahead of its release, two digital singles will be issued for streaming and download:&nbsp;White Gloves &amp; Turtlenecks, out today, July 31, followed by&nbsp;Dazed And Reflective Glory - Pt.1 on September 4.
After years away from the recordings, Wiltzie returned to the tapes with blessings from J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s family, completing&nbsp;Friendship Survival Guide&nbsp;to honor J&oacute;hann&rsquo;s legacy. Some of these tracks&mdash;and the analog tape loops that form their core&mdash;remain as they were first recorded a decade ago by the pair&rsquo;s longtime friend and engineer&nbsp;Francesco Donadello, using J&oacute;hann's Revox machines. Other&nbsp;Friendship Survival Guide&nbsp;pieces required additional recording that took place between 2023-25, with Wiltzie assisted by electronic musician&nbsp;Tim Hecker&nbsp;and composer&nbsp;Bryan Senti. Many of the guitar tracks on&nbsp;Friendship Survival Guide&nbsp;were, in Wiltzie&rsquo;s words, &ldquo;recorded, blasted and amped&rdquo; by engineer/producer&nbsp;Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago, months before his own sudden passing. The musical ghosts that permeate these recordings are staggering to behold.&nbsp;
Yet so is the camaraderie and creative love that informs the album and its name. As he often does with all his projects, Wiltzie gave original titles to the pieces at the end of the recording process, supplying them with &ldquo;hidden meanings.&rdquo; The titles on&nbsp;Friendship Survival Guide &ldquo;anchor the sound in our recognizable friendship&rdquo; and &ldquo;function as a private language between the collaborators.&rdquo; For insight into how close Wiltize and J&oacute;hannsson were, look no further than the layered, starts-in-the-middle orchestral beauty of the opener, &ldquo;September Nineteen Sixty Nine,&rdquo; named after the month both men were born in, two days and an ocean apart.&nbsp;
The pair first met in 2007 in Prague, where J&oacute;hannsson was recording parts of his soon-to-be-released,&nbsp;Fordlandia, making the leap from the Icelandic shoegaze punk underground to the expansive, string-laden sound that would make him a global sensation. He&rsquo;d come to see Wiltzie&rsquo;s storied band, Stars of the Lid, then in the midst of a European tour, and introduced himself at the merch table. The pair went out drinking with friends that night, instantly bonding around similar lives and interests, and around shared musical aesthetics, ambient synths, orchestral grandeur, lo-fi tape loops and how various drones intermingle effortlessly. Wiltzie remembers the evening as a &ldquo;first-night-on-Earth-type meeting, two guys who just met but seemed like we'd known each other our entire lives.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Over the next decade, Wiltzie and J&oacute;hannsson collaborated regularly. In 2009, Wiltzie helped book and tour manage J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s first (very DIY) tour of the U.S, and Adam would remain a regular part of J&oacute;hann&rsquo;s live band, and his live sound engineer, even as he also continued working on solo music, and launched the duo A Winged Victory for the Sullen with Dustin O&rsquo;Halloran. In 2013, J&oacute;hannsson invited Wiltzie to ghost-write and collaborate on the cues to the score for the James Marsh film,&nbsp;The&nbsp;Theory of Everything, the first time they&rsquo;d written and recorded together. Working in separate studios&mdash;J&oacute;hannsson in Berlin, Wiltzie from his home in Belgium&mdash;the collaboration was a &ldquo;back-and-forth, super-easy and quick. He loved it, and I loved what he was sending back.&rdquo; Wiltzie called the time &ldquo;very inspiring and creative&rdquo; for both men, and &ldquo;the catalyst for the idea of recording an album together.&rdquo; They began recording what J&oacute;hannsson called &ldquo;our own weird record&rdquo; right there and then; but before long, the&nbsp;Theory score won those Hollywood awards, and J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s career went, in Wiltzie&rsquo;s words, &ldquo;skyrocket to the moon,&rdquo; pushing their album idea onto the back-burner.
Yet the pair&rsquo;s friendship never receded. Wiltzie recalls the last of his regular check-in phone calls with J&oacute;hannsson, shortly before J&oacute;hann&rsquo;s passing in February 2018: &ldquo;He had just played a concert in Barcelona, and was sounding calm and lucid. I was so happy for him because he had a great show. He said, he wished he could do more shows like this, because it felt so good to be on stage.&rsquo; He was having a really good day, and seemed in a really good place. And then he was gone.&rdquo;
Speaking of&nbsp;Friendship Survival Guide, Wiltzie says: &ldquo;Our friendship is the story here, that one half of the duo is not around anymore, that he was a good friend of mine, and I'm still dealing with his loss. At the same time, it feels great to be finishing this music. Because you can feel J&oacute;hann&rsquo;s presence. It's this living, breathing thing, a beautiful reminder. The quintessentially most perfect and beautiful thing about collaboration is that it&rsquo;s something you could never do by yourself. It's as simple as that. J&oacute;hann&rsquo;s not there anymore, but this artifact we created together, is alive and it's incredible. I could never have done it without him.&rdquo;
(For more of Adam Wiltzie discussing his relationship with J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson and&nbsp;Friendship Survival Guide, read the full as-told-to text, culled from an interview with Piotr Orlov.)
Alongside the release of&nbsp;Friendship Survival Guide, September 18th will also see the release of an accompanying three-chapter short film by Belgian director Jonas Govaerts. Starring Wiltzie and the actor Jeroen Percevall (Bullhead), the film can be best described as a metaphysical nocturnal taxi ride, a visual (non-documentary) companion to the album, with scenes shot in a Gent studio and a bleak train station in Muizen.
The album&rsquo;s release date, September 18, also marks the pre-order start for the crystal-clear vinyl reissue of&nbsp;Orph&eacute;e, one of J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s most successful albums celebrating its 10-year anniversary in 2026. The special edition will be released shortly afterwards, on October 16.
Upcoming live performances of J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s music will take place at the Vancouver International Film Festival (Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, Vancouver, BC,10/9/2026), featuring an orchestra playing to film clips of&nbsp;Prisoners,&nbsp;Arrival,&nbsp;Sicario, and&nbsp;The Theory of Everything; and at the Ambient Festival Cologne 2027 (location/date TBC), where Ensemble Musikfabrik will perform &ldquo;Drone Mass.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Upcoming North American live dates for A Winged Victory For the Sullen include Vic Theatre in Chicago (9/23/2026), The Concert Hall in Toronto (9/25/2026), Pop Montr&eacute;al (9/26/2026), and Pioneer Works in Brooklyn (9/28 &amp; 9/29/2026).&nbsp;

World Premiere Recordings of Haunting New Piano Versions of Works by Jóhann Jóhannsson Performed by Alice Sara Ott

Alice Sara Ott presents some of J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s best-loved music, newly reimagined for solo piano 
J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson: Piano Works &ndash; Film Themes, the first of two digital EPs, will be released on 7 November 2025
&nbsp;
Pianist Alice Sara Ott presents the work of Icelandic composer J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson (1969-2018) as never heard before. She has made the world premiere recordings of a new volume of piano transcriptions &ndash; published as a limited edition by Faber Music &ndash; which capture the essence of 30 of his most famous works. As composer Dustin O&rsquo;Halloran writes in the introduction to the book, &ldquo;J&oacute;hann&rsquo;s music, in its timelessness, will forever remain vibrant and alive&rdquo;.
The selection spans J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s career, from studio albums such as Englab&ouml;rn and Orph&eacute;e to the pioneering scores he wrote for documentaries or feature films such as Copenhagen Dreams, Personal Effects and the Golden-Globe-winning The Theory of Everything. Two digital EPs will be released by Deutsche Grammophon before the end of 2025, with the full 30-track album following next spring.
Though Alice Sara Ott never met J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson, she had always loved his music. In preparing for this unique project, she spoke to several of his friends and colleagues to gain greater insight into his work and processes: &ldquo;As I worked on these pieces &ndash; internalising the musical architecture, shapes and language of J&oacute;hann&rsquo;s music &ndash; it actually felt like a very personal dialogue with him.&rdquo;
Alice then travelled to Reykjav&iacute;k in July 2024 to record all 30 tracks at the studio of Grammy-nominated producer and engineer Bergur &THORN;&oacute;risson, who had himself worked with J&oacute;hannsson in the past. She played most of the pieces on &THORN;&oacute;risson&rsquo;s old upright piano, having fallen in love with the sense of nostalgia conjured by its felted sound.
&ldquo;What&rsquo;s so incredible about J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s music,&rdquo; concludes Ott, &ldquo;is how his compositions, originally written for larger ensembles and different instruments, translate so beautifully to the piano. Within this more focused and intimate sound world, the writing reveals hidden nuances and enhances the purity and clarity that are so intrinsic to his music.&rdquo;
Available from 7&nbsp;November 2025, the first EP, J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson: Piano Works &ndash; Film Themes, comprises &ldquo;Beauty&rdquo; from Blind Massage, &ldquo;Dressing Up&rdquo; from Personal Effects, &ldquo;Innocence&rdquo; from Free&nbsp;the Mind and &ldquo;The Theory of Everything&rdquo; from the film of the same name. The last of these will be available to stream/download from 17&nbsp;October. The second EP, Piano Works &ndash; From Englab&ouml;rn, follows on 12&nbsp;December, and the album will be issued in all formats on 6&nbsp;March 2026.
ABOUT ALICE SARA OTT
One of the world&rsquo;s most-streamed female classical pianists, Alice Sara Ott is renowned not only for the poetry, refinement and emotional honesty of her playing, but for her innovative approach to programming and audience engagement. A global artist who performs in the most prestigious venues both as solo pianist and with the world&rsquo;s leading orchestras, she continually reimagines the repertoire, creating original multimedia experiences through cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Exploring and experimenting have long been part of the German-Japanese pianist&rsquo;s approach to her work. When touring the music from her 2021 DG album Echoes Of Life, for example, she worked with architect Hakan Demirel, whose digital video installation added a visual narrative to her live performances. Then, in 2023, she became the face of the Apple Music Classical app when she starred in its multi-platform video launch campaign, performing Beethoven&rsquo;s Piano Concerto No.&nbsp;1 with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Karina Canellakis.
Alice is also the first choice for many leading contemporary composers when it comes to premiering and recording their work. This has led to exciting collaborations with &Oacute;lafur Arnalds, Bryce Dessner, Chilly Gonzales, and Francesco Tristano, among others.
A talented illustrator and designer, Alice fosters her versatile image by merging classical music with fashion, jewellery and tech. She has worked closely with such leading international brands as Technics; JOST bags (Germany); French jewellery house Chaumet, part of the LVMH group; and German jeweller Wempe.
She became an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist in 2008, when she was only 19 years old. Her latest album, Alice Sara Ott: John Field &middot; Complete Nocturnes, was released in February 2025 to critical acclaim (&ldquo;Ott brings to these pieces an expressive touch, subtle rubato, graceful left-hand fluidity and sparkling right-hand filigree&rdquo; &ndash; Gramophone).
As a complement to the recording, she worked with director Andrew Staples to create Alice Sara Ott: Nocturne, a 45-minute film shot at the Hyperbowl virtual production house in Munich. Offering a rare glimpse into the artist&rsquo;s mind during the creative process, this immersive film went on to win the 2025 OPUS KLASSIK Audiovisual Music Production of the Year award.
ABOUT J&Oacute;HANN J&Oacute;HANNSSON
Icelandic composer J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson was a hugely influential figure in the contemporary music scene. Disregarding any notion of barriers between different genres of music, he created his own compositional language, a fusion of classical, minimalist, ambient and electronic elements, with a frequent use of synths and drones. When he died in February 2018, at the age of just 48, he was at the height of his creative powers. His legacy lives on in his wide-ranging recorded catalogue, whose contents span everything from evocative works for small ensemble to strikingly original and multi-award-winning film scores.
Born in Reykjav&iacute;k in September 1969, J&oacute;hannsson learned piano and trombone in his youth, but was essentially a self-taught musician. He began playing in bands as a teenager, notably the indie outfit Daisy Hill Puppy Farm and the alt-rock HAM, gradually switching his focus to composition. His debut solo album, Englab&ouml;rn (&ldquo;Angels&rdquo;, 2002), revealed an early ability to translate emotions into atmospheric soundscapes and dramatic musical portraits, using a combination of acoustic and electronic instruments.
He developed his experimental idiom in studio albums such as Vir&eth;ulegu Forsetar (&ldquo;Honourable Presidents&rdquo;, 2004),&nbsp;IBM 1401, A User&rsquo;s Manual (2006) and Fordlandia (2008), while also starting to write music for theatre, television and film. In 2010-11, for example, he gained wider renown with the soundtrack he wrote for The Miners&rsquo; Hymns, American director Bill Morrison&rsquo;s wordless documentary depicting the ill-fated mining community of County Durham in the north-east of England.
Having settled in Berlin, J&oacute;hannsson began a successful working relationship with Denis Villeneuve with the score for 2013&rsquo;s Prisoners. He followed this with much-lauded soundtracks for Sicario (2015) and Arrival (2016). The former won him his second Oscar nomination &ndash; he had earned his first with the music he wrote for James Marsh&rsquo;s The Theory of Everything (2014), a soundtrack which was also Grammy-nominated and won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score.
In 2016 J&oacute;hannsson signed with DG, who issued both his final solo album, Orph&eacute;e (that same year) and his final soundtrack album, The Mercy (a second collaboration with Marsh), released just a week before the composer&rsquo;s death. Working closely with J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s family, friends and colleagues, DG released several posthumous albums, including Englab&ouml;rn &amp; Variations (2018); 12&nbsp;Conversations with Thilo Heinzmann (2019); and the soundtrack co-composed with Yair Elazar Glotman for Last and First Men (2020), a sci-fi film J&oacute;hannsson also co‑wrote and directed. These have since been followed by, among others, the &ldquo;contemporary oratorio&rdquo; Drone Mass (2022); the large-scale orchestral work A Prayer to the Dynamo (2023); and, now, the insightful pianistic readings offered on this album by Alice Sara Ott.

Jóhann Jóhannsson: A Lost Symphony

Deutsche Grammophon is proud to release the world premiere recording of J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s A&nbsp;Prayer to the Dynamo. This major orchestral work was inspired in general by the composer&rsquo;s fascination with technology, and in particular by field recordings he made at Iceland&rsquo;s Elli&eth;a&aacute;r power plant and the writings of Henry Adams. It is paired on this new album with two suites compiled and arranged by the composer from existing material drawn from his Academy Award-nominated scores for Sicario and The Theory of Everything, also recorded here for the first time.
Dan&iacute;el Bjarnason conducts the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in recordings made at the Harpa concert hall in Reykjav&iacute;k. With booklet notes by renowned music writer and radio host John Schaefer, in conversation with J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s father, J&oacute;hann Gunnarsson, A Prayer to the Dynamo will be released on CD, vinyl (2&nbsp;LPs) and digitally on 15&nbsp;September 2023. Three taster tracks will be shared over the summer: &ldquo;A Model of the Universe&rdquo; and &ldquo;Forces of Attraction&rdquo; (both from The Theory of Everything) on 30 June and 28 July respectively, with Part&nbsp;1 of A Prayer to the Dynamo following on 25&nbsp;August.
A Prayer to the Dynamo was written in response to a commission from the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. It received its first, and so far only performance at the orchestra&rsquo;s New Music Festival on 3&nbsp;February 2012. As noted by the festival&rsquo;s curator, composer Matthew Patton, it represented a turning-point in J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s career, having been written without any of the narrative constraints involved in composing for film. &ldquo;He never wrote a piece for orchestra this big, this long, and with this much freedom.&rdquo; This recording will turn a much-deserved spotlight on to a work Patton has described as a &ldquo;lost symphony&rdquo; and introduce it to audiences worldwide.
Composed for full orchestra, A Prayer to the Dynamo also features a soundtrack of recordings of electrical installations, generators and high-voltage wires made at the decommissioned Elli&eth;a&aacute;r hydroelectric power plant on the outskirts of Reykjav&iacute;k. Always fascinated by our relationship with (sometimes obsolete) technology, J&oacute;hannsson had wanted to capture the sights and sounds of Elli&eth;a&aacute;r. As he said at the time, &ldquo;I recorded the sounds [and] also filmed the station in black and white Super 8. [Together with] my experience of working with old technical images from the British coal industry in the work The Miners&rsquo; Hymns, [this] sparked in me the idea to make a short film about the power station.&rdquo;
Sadly, the film project was left unfinished on his death in 2018, but J&oacute;hannsson had also woven his Elli&eth;a&aacute;r experiences into his Winnipeg commission. For this he drew further inspiration from the work of Edison, Tesla and, primarily, a chapter in the memoirs of American historian Henry Adams (1838-1918). Entitled &ldquo;The Dynamo and the Virgin&rdquo;, this records his impressions of the 1900 Paris Expo, reflecting on the hidden force of the huge machinery he witnessed there and the similarly invisible power of religious faith, thoughts that also led him to write a &ldquo;Prayer to a Dynamo&rdquo;, as part of a longer poem. J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s notes for his film liken the Elli&eth;a&aacute;r plant to a cathedral, and ideas of scale, majesty, mystery and consolation can all be heard in the music of A&nbsp;Prayer to the Dynamo, featuring massed strings, chorale-like brass writing and soaring woodwind, all underpinned by the humming, pulsing reverberations of his field recordings.
The album also includes two short suites of music from the composer&rsquo;s soundtracks for The Theory of Everything and Sicario, both of which were nominated for Oscars and an array of other awards, with the former winning the Golden Globe for best original score. No longer tied to the narrative demands of a film, J&oacute;hannsson arranged his suites based on purely musical decisions. His Theory of Everything suite, for example, ends with the original opening track, &ldquo;Cambridge, 1963&rdquo;, and begins with &ldquo;A Model of the Universe&rdquo;. These frame a trio of pieces unified by the sound of the celesta, to create a lyrical sequence of episodes.&nbsp;
By contrast, in just three concise movements, starting with the stark sounds of &ldquo;Target&rdquo;, the Sicario suite captures the feeling of menace and impending violence that pervades the film. A solo cello takes centre stage in &ldquo;Desert Music&rdquo; before the closing track, &ldquo;Melancholia&rdquo;, brings the suite, and the album, to an end with what Variety has described as &ldquo;the kind of quiet, if rueful, beauty one has come to expect from J&oacute;hannsson&rdquo;.
These three world premiere recordings add yet more breadth and depth to the composer&rsquo;s discography. As noted by Gramophone last year in its review of Drone Mass, &ldquo;J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s music gives the impression of having arrived in a time capsule from a distant planet that is a mirror image of our own. His own absence now adds further mystery and magic to his music&rsquo;s unique sound world.&rdquo;

Reissue of Jóhann Jóhannsson's tribute to the traditions of working-class culture

J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s The Miners&rsquo; Hymns exquisitely captured the dignity and despair of the ill-fated mining community of the northeast of England. Written to accompany American director Bill Morrison&rsquo;s powerful film paying homage to the miners of County Durham, it was initially released in 2011. The music still stands today as a monument remembering the life and death of the great coal mines, and the people they once sustained.
Deutsche Grammophon has now reissued the celebrated double LP. Each of the album&rsquo;s six original tracks bears a title taken from the Marxist and labour slogans proudly displayed on the trade union banners carried at the annual Durham Miners&rsquo; Gala. J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s compositions, recorded in the vast space of Durham Cathedral, combine echoes of the brass bands that still accompany the Gala procession today with organ sounds, percussion and ghostly traces of electronics. They are complemented by the addition of a previously unissued bonus track, &lsquo;Centennial&rsquo;, a piece J&oacute;hannsson created to celebrate the 100th birthday of his grandmother in 2004 and which is played here on a crank organ by his father, J&oacute;hann Gunnarsson.
The reissue of The Miners&rsquo; Hymns includes additional material in the form of a specially commissioned essay, in which Bill Morrison recalls his long friendship with the composer. &ldquo;As the last chords echoed through the Cathedral [at the work&rsquo;s live premiere in Durham, in 2010], we glanced around to see grown men openly weeping in the back. And we both looked at each other and exhaled a bit knowing we had passed some test.&rdquo; The album artwork also now contains photos of the two men taken at the beginning of their collaboration in 2009 and at their last meeting, shortly before J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s tragic death in February 2018.
J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s music and Bill Morrison&rsquo;s compilation of monochrome archive footage and colour aerial shots of the closed mines of County Durham speak volumes about the disappearance of a culture and the brutal manner in which the national miners&rsquo; strike of 1984 was handled by the government of the day. The album embraces melancholy as well as the spirit of celebration to create what the BBC&rsquo;s reviewer described following its first release as &ldquo;a brooding, dark tribute focused on the appalling hardships of pit labour and the undeniable salience of the trade union movement in times of political cataclysm&rdquo;.
The Miners&rsquo; Hymns unfolds slowly and leaves plenty of space for reverent silences. It opens with &ldquo;They Being Dead Yet Speaketh&rdquo; &ndash; in which mournful chords from the organ are gradually taken up by the brass ensemble, with occasional percussive punctuation &ndash; and grows in stature and sound in numbers such as &ldquo;Industrial and Provident, We Unite to Assist Each Other&rdquo;. The brass chorale that emerges in the album&rsquo;s final track, &ldquo;The Cause of Labour Is the Hope of the World&rdquo;, heralds what &ldquo;feels like an epiphany, a generous flooding of light that casts a backward glow on all the gloom and pallor that preceded it &hellip; It&rsquo;s a quietly exhilarating &lsquo;hallelujah&rsquo; that depends entirely on the previous 45 minutes of buildup for its weight&rdquo; (Pitchfork.com).

DG Releases Jóhann Jóhannsson's Previously Unrecorded "Drone Mass"

Deutsche Grammophon is honoured to release the eagerly anticipated world premiere recording of&nbsp;J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s Drone Mass. Described by its composer as &ldquo;a&nbsp;contemporary oratorio&rdquo;, this exceptional work is written for voices, string quartet and electronics. It was commissioned by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), who have now recorded Drone Mass together with&nbsp;vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices and its Artistic Director Paul Hillier. Both ACME and Theatre of&nbsp;Voices worked closely with J&oacute;hannsson on many occasions &ndash; in concert, on tour and in the studio. Out today, 18 March 2022, in digital format as well as on CD and 180g vinyl, this new album not only immortalises one of the Icelandic composer&rsquo;s defining works, it also stands as a moving tribute from some of the long-time collaborators with whom he worked closely during his illustrious career.
Drone Mass is a profoundly atmospheric work, at times reminiscent of the meditative minimalism of composers such as P&auml;rt or G&oacute;recki, and represents what J&oacute;hannsson called &ldquo;a distillation of a lot of influences and obsessions&rdquo;. One of these was, as the title suggests, his fascination with the musical device of the drone. Here, his drones have a motivic-like role, shifting and shimmering with hypnotic effect, conjuring different moods, from unsettling to uplifting, as the work progresses.
Beginning with strings and voices, but slowly integrating Jóhannsson&rsquo;s electronic techniques into its landscape, Drone Mass draws on material from the so-called &ldquo;Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians&rdquo; &ndash; part of the Nag Hammadi library discovered in 1945 &ndash; including a hymn the composer spoke of as &ldquo;a seemingly meaningless series of vowels&rdquo;. Both the enigmatic nature of the chosen texts and the sheer beauty of his vocalise-style writing add to the spiritual quality of the work as a whole. &nbsp;
The album was recorded in May 2019 at Copenhagen&rsquo;s Garnisonskirken (Garrison Church) and produced by Francesco Donadello, another of J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s regular collaborators. ACME were joined by internationally renowned Danish vocal group Theatre of Voices and their Artistic Director Paul Hillier. They too have a very close connection with Drone Mass, having performed it twice in the US, and in Kr&aacute;kow, with J&oacute;hannsson and ACME. Most recently, ACME and Theatre of Voices gave a further performance in Athens, just four months after the composer&rsquo;s untimely death in Berlin on 9&nbsp;February 2018, at the age of 48. Their recording of the mysterious, and timeless, Drone Mass is a further reminder of J&oacute;hann J&oacute;hannsson&rsquo;s rare visionary talent.

Orphée

ORPHÉE Jóhannsson

Adam Wiltzie, Jóhann Jóhannsson: Friendship Survival Guide

FRIENDSHIP SURVIVAL GUIDE Adam Wiltzie, Jóhann Jóhannsson

JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON: A Prayer to the Dynamo

A PRAYER TO THE DYNAMO Jóhannsson

Jóhann Jóhannsson - And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees Vinyl Cover

AND IN THE ENDLESS PAUSE THERE CAME THE SOUND OF BEES Jóhannsson

Johannsson Copenhagen Dreams Cover

COPENHAGEN DREAMS Jóhann Jóhannsson

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Drone Mass cover

DRONE MASS Jóhannsson

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Capturing the Essence

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Capturing the Essence - Jóhann Jóhannsson | Deutsche Grammophon

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