Gramophone Awards
2024
Shortlisted - Song

Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Joseph Middleton (piano)

Wolf, H: An eine Äolsharfe
Brahms: An ein Veilchen, Op.49 No. 2
Schubert: An die Musik D547
Parry: My Heart is like a Singing Bird
Excerpt,Bernstein: I Hate Music, a cycle of five 'kid songs'
No. 3, I hate music!
Frances-Hoad: Something More Than Mortal
Felix Mendelessohn Bartholdy: Auf Flügeln des Gesanges, Op.34 No. 2
Franck, C: Nocturne, FWV 85
Strohl: Bilitis
Paladilhe: Psyché
Gounod: Ave Maria
Poulenc: Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon
Saariaho: Parfum de l'instant
Pritchard, Deborah: Everyone Sang
Barber: A Slumber Song of the Madonna
Gurney: Sleep
Strauss, R: Morgen, Op. 27 No. 4
Wallen: Peace on earth

After many acclaimed releases on BIS, most recently ‘Sounds and Sweet Airs – A Shakespeare Songbook’ (BIS-2653), Carolyn Sampson’s latest recital with Joseph Middleton lives up to its name: it is an eloquent testimony to the English soprano’s love of her art. This programme artfully blends well-known and lesser-known lieder by German and Austrian masters such as Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf with French songs by Gounod, Poulenc and Franck, as well as works by Anglo-Saxon composers such as Hubert Parry, Samuel Barber and Ivor Gurney. Female composers are not forgotten, with rarely-performed songs by Rita Strohl based on slightly risqué poems by Pierre Louÿs, music by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Kaija Saariaho – who has recently passed away – and Deborah Pritchard, whose song presented here was composed especially for Sampson. And while Leonard Bernstein’s comically cheeky song ‘I hate music’, appears to be a call not to let music take itself too seriously, Errollyn Wallen’s ‘Peace on Earth’, which concludes the album, invokes calm and encourages us to find peace, a message that seems more relevant today than ever.


"It’s a portrait of an artist who has shown us many faces on those 100 discs but whose voice remains a constant: sweet, flexible, alive to the text. And always intelligent." - Gramophone Magazine, December 2023