An introduction by Jeff Johnson –

It has never been possible for me to persuade myself that the universe could have been created, and we, homo sapiens, so-called, have, generation after generation, somehow made our appearance to sojourn briefly on our tiny earth, solely in order to mount the interminable soap opera, with the same characters and situations endlessly recurring, that we call history. It would be like building a great stadium for a display of tiddly-winks, or a vast opera house for a mouth-organ recital.

–Malcom Muggeridge from Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim

In 1988, during a trip through Bavaria, I stopped to see King Ludwig II's famous Neuschwanstein Castle. It was during the tour of Ludwig's father's castle, Hohenschwangau, that our guide said of the younger Ludwig: "He was, after all, a great romantic." Later, we were shown his bedroom where tiny holes drilled into the night blue painted ceiling allowed candle light to twinkle through so that the young prince could imagine that he was "sleeping under the stars." At first I joined the others in laughing at the preposterous idea of it all. Yet, I later asked myself: "Are we that much different in our own notions and 'constructions' of what we claim is reality?" I think not: We are, after all, just great romantics."

All through the recording you can feel Johnson’s increasing wistfulness. His work is conceptual and so consistent that it is as if he speaks fluently this other, musical/poetic language. To appreciate his work is to understand what he is saying; and to agree...Great Romantics is a powerful musical exploration of a Gothic, melodramatic theme park.

– The Syndicate (October/1991)