but I like to sing…
Songs by Wolf, Brahms, Schubert, Parry, Bernstein et al
Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Joseph Middleton (piano)
BIS BIS-2673 (CD/SACD) 68:47 mins
Carolyn Sampson has shifted from an early music specialist to one of Britain’s finest recital singers. This latest album showcases her radiant soprano in classic German Lieder, recherché French chansons and 20th-century Americana.
The collection can feel haphazard, but there’s a reason: it’s highly personal. This is Sampson’s 100th recording as a named soloist, so she’s allowed a little self-indulgence. The album brings together 22 songs that, as Sampson explains in her booklet note, ‘reflect some of the ways in which music heightens our emotions, eases our pain, deepens our love.’
Pianist Joseph Middleton has become Sampson’s duo partner of choice and their easy rapport envelops you, whether in the timeless stillness of Strauss’s ‘Morgen’, enhanced by Jack Liebeck’s solo violin, or in the effervescent rapture of Joseph Marx’s ‘Nocturne’ with its virtuosic piano writing bringing Middleton to the fore.
Elsewhere, there are consummate performances of old favourites such as Schubert’s ‘An die Musik’, the Bach/Gounod ‘Ave Maria’ and Mendelssohn’s ‘On Wings of Song’, interspersed with less well-known contemporary gems such as Saariaho’s feverish, hypnotic ‘P’arfum de l’instant’ and Deborah Pritchard’s awestruck setting of Siegfried Sassoon’s ‘Everyone Sang’.
The French songs lie at the heart of the collection. Sampson and Middleton revel in three beguiling songs from Rita Strohl’s ‘Bilitis’ (1898), while Emile Paladilhe’s gorgeous setting of Corneille’s ‘Psyché’ demonstrates why he was an influential figure in late-19th-century France.
The line ‘but I love to sing’ from Bernstein’s satirical ‘I Hate Music’ gives the album its title. And sure enough, this celebration of song is infused with heartfelt joy. Ashutosh Khandekar
