Reason in Madness

Debussy: Chansons de Bilitis;

R Strauss: Drei Lieder der Ophelia, Op. 67; plus songs by Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Wolf etc Carolyn Sampson (soprano),

Joseph Middleton (piano)

BIS BIS-2353 (hybrid CD/ACD) 74:50 mins ‘There is always some reason in madness.’

The words are Nietzsche’s, and the theme of women struck by mental instability (often on account of men) unifies the wide-ranging choice of repertoire on soprano Carolyn Sampson’s latest recital. It opens with Brahms’s haunting, unaccompanied ‘Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloss’, sung by Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Ophelia’s death is mourned in the achingly poignant account of Schumann’s Herzeleid which follows, where the intimate symbiosis between Sampson and her pianist Joseph Middleton are raptly apparent. Together they galvanise attention in Richard Strauss’s Drei Lieder der Ophelia, flipping with unsettling abruptness between apparent calm and spurts of frenetic animation. The wild demons of the Freudian id are fully unleashed in Koechlin’s libidinal Hymne à Astarté, which Sampson delivers with an operatic intensity. Her ability to etch subtle detail at lower dynamic levels is highlighted in a lissomely sensual account of Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis.

Wolf’s Mignon-lieder lie at the heart of the recital. Sampson’s impregnation of sustained notes with expressive meaning helps sustain the expansive paragraphs of ‘Kennst Du das Land?’ in an interpretation which formidably encompasses the song’s immense sense of unfulfillable longing.

Songs by Schubert, Saint-saëns, Chausson, Duparc and Poulenc complete this portrait-gallery of women unhinged by oppressive patriarchal expectations. Sampson’s mix of silken tonal quality and cutting dramatic instincts makes the journey a compelling one, and in Joseph Middleton she has an accompanist who constantly brings extra illumination without barging obtrusively into the spotlight.

Terry Blain

PERFORMANCE ★★★★

RECORDING ★★★★★