Bliss International Song Series - Album für Die Frau - scenes from the Schumanns' Lieder

8 PM, Saturday 5th November,

Carolyn Sampson - soprano

Joseph Middleton - piano

For the first four years of their marriage, Robert and Clara Schumann kept a joint diary, a project which Robert described as 'a record of our wishes and our hopes, and the means whereby we may convey to one another any requests we may have to make, for which words may not suffice...'



In the imaginative recital Album für die Frau, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton combine songs and piano solos by both composers into something similar – the depiction of a relationship seen through the eyes of both parties. Using the eight songs from Robert's song cycle Frauenliebe und –leben to poems by Adalbert von Chamisso as the framework, they add songs as well as some piano solos in order to create a fuller and more complex picture. The result seems to suggest that the experiences of our 'Frau' are richer than Chamisso and Robert Schumann imagined: while love, marriage and motherhood dominated much of Clara Schumann's life, Robert's death in 1856 signalled the start of a four-decade widowhood during which she resumed her stellar career as a pianist.

Buy your ticket: £20 (standard), £5 (students).

Equally at home on the concert and opera stages, Carolyn Sampson has enjoyed notable successes in the UK as well as throughout Europe and the US.

On the opera stage, her roles have included the title role in Semele and Pamina inThe Magic Flute for English National Opera, various roles in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen for Glyndebourne Festival Opera (released on DVD) and both Anne Truelove The Rake’s Progress and Mélisande Pelléas et Mélisande in Sir David McVicar’s productions for Scottish Opera. Internationally she has appeared at Opéra de Paris, Opéra de Lille, Opéra de Montpellier and Opéra National du Rhin. She also sang the title role in Lully’s Psyché for the Boston Early Music Festival, which was released on CD and was subsequently nominated for a Grammy in 2008.

Carolyn Sampson’s concert engagements in the UK have included regular appearances at the BBC Proms and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The English Concert, Bach Collegium Japan, Manchester Camerata and The Sixteen, among others. She is a frequent guest with the Hallé and has performed with City of London Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Carolyn Sampson has performed with major orchestras throughout Europe, and in the United States she has featured as soloist with San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony, Detroit Symphony and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and is a regular guest at the Mostly Mozart Festival. In 2013 she made her Carnegie Hall recital debut to a sold-out audience in the Weill Hall. A consummate recitalist, Carolyn Sampson appears regularly at Wigmore Hall, and a recital of lute songs with Matthew Wadsworth was issued by the Wigmore Live label. She has given regular recitals at the Saintes and Aldeburgh festivals as well as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

Her recording of Purcell songs for BIS was selected as Editor’s Choice by Gramophone. Her many recordings for Hyperion with The King’s Consort include a highly acclaimed album of Mozart sacred music, ‘Exsultate jubilate’, which was selected by BBC Music Magazine as ‘Record of the Month’, and was also the recipient of an ECHO Award. Her numerous other recordings appear on the Harmonia Mundi, Decca, BIS, Virgin Classics, DG Archiv, Linn and Vivat labels.

Pianist Joseph Middleton specializes in the art of song accompaniment and chamber music and has been highly acclaimed within this field. Described in the BBC Music Magazine as ‘one of the brightest stars in the world of song and Lieder’, he has also been labeled ‘the cream of the new generation’ by The Times and ‘a perfect accompanist’ by Opera Now. Joseph is Director of Leeds Lieder, a Professor at his alma mater the Royal Academy of Music, and holds the position of Musician in Residence at Pembroke College Cambridge, where he curates an imaginative song recital series as well as directing the University’s Lieder Scheme. In 2016 he became the first accompanist to win the Young Artist Award at the Royal Philharmonic Awards.

Joseph enjoys recitals with internationally established singers including Sir Thomas Allen, Ian Bostridge, Dame Sarah Connolly, Lucy Crowe, Iestyn Davies, Wolfgang Holzmair, Christiane Karg, Katarina Karnéus, Dame Felicity Lott, Christopher Maltman, John Mark Ainsley, Ann Murray, Mark Padmore, Joan Rodgers, Amanda Roocroft, Kate Royal, Matthew Rose, Carolyn Sampson and Roderick Williams. He regularly collaborates with rising stars from the younger generation and in 2012 he formed the Myrthen Ensemble to further explore lesser-known song repertoire with regular duo partners Mary Bevan, Clara Mouriz, Allan Clayton and Marcus Farnsworth. Their début CD was released on Signum Records.

Recent seasons have taken him to London’s Wigmore Hall, Royal Opera House and Royal Festival Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Köln Philharmonie, Zürich Tonhalle, Paris Musée d’Orsay, Frankfurt and Strasbourg Operas, deSingel Antwerp and Luxembourg Philharmonie. He made his New York debut at the Alice Tully Hall accompanying Sarah Connolly in a recital described in the New York Times as ‘superlative…everything a song recital should be’. Elsewhere in the Americas he has appeared at New York’s Park Avenue Armory, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Vancouver’s Chan Centre, San Francisco’s Nourse and Herbst Theatres and Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. He is a regular guest at Festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Aldeburgh, the BBC Proms, Brighton, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Munich, Oxford Lieder, Stuttgart and West Cork.

His critically acclaimed discography includes ‘Fleurs’ and ‘A Verlaine Songbook’ with Carolyn Sampson for BIS Records (the former nominated for a Gramophone Award & Radio France’s Disc of the Month); ‘Strauss Lieder’ with Louise Alder for Orchid Classics; and, for Champs Hill Records: ‘Nocturnal Variations’ with Ruby Hughes (Recording of the Month – BBC Music Magazine), ‘Elgar in Sussex’ with Dame Felicity Lott, ‘Tell me the Truth about Love’ with Amanda Roocroft, ‘This other Eden’ with Kitty Whately (Shortlisted for Best Disc of 2015 – American Record Guide), the Lieder of Ludwig Thuille with Sophie Bevan and Jennifer Johnston and the complete Purcell/Britten realizations with Ruby Hughes, Allan Clayton and Matthew Rose.