In his poem Art poétique, Paul Verlaine declared that poetry above all should be musical: 'De la musique avant toute chose'. This quality in his work was recognized by composers already during his lifetime, and it is sometimes claimed that Verlaine has been set to music more often than any other poet after him.+ For their Verlaine Songbook, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton have selected songs by ten composers, including two complete cycles – Fauré's La Bonne Chanson and Debussy's Ariettes oubliées. The 33 songs on the release set a total of 25 texts – several poems by Verlaine have attracted more than one composer, and Clair de lune appears three times, in versions by Debussy, Fauré and Joseph Szulc, while La lune blanche can be heard no less than four, in versions by Fauré, Ernest Chausson, Reynaldo Hahn and Poldowski – the pseudonym of the Belgian-born British composer Régine Wieniawski. Released in 2015 to critical acclaim, Carolyn Sampson's début recital disc, Fleurs (BIS-2102), was a flower-themed anthology with songs by composers ranging from Purcell to Benjamin Britten via Schubert and Debussy. On the present release the repertoire is rather more concentrated in time – all songs were composed during a span of 35 years (c. 1880-1915) – but the variety is nevertheless striking: a reflection of how different artistic temperaments have interpreted the many-facetted Verlaine.
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REVIEW:
Sampson and Middleton concentrate on song cycles, bookending their recitals with Debussy's Fetes galantes and Ariette oubliees, and placing La bonne chanson (Faure) at its center. Paysages tristes, by the d'Indy pupil Deodat de Severac, one of the many discoveries here, forms the disc's unforgettable epilogue.
Both artists are very much at home in this repertory, frequently functioning as an indivisible unit with sound and sense beautifully fused. Sampson is in excellent voice, her tone clear and silvery, her upper registers exquisite. Middleton's playing is marvelously fresh throughout, the thin dividing line between wit and melancholy superbly negotiated.
Bach: Secular Cantatas, Vol. 6 - Trauerode / Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan
BIS
SACD
$21.99Apr 08, 2016
Bach’s secular cantatas, in contrast to his sacred works, were not always intended to be performed for a specific church service. They were frequently commissioned for weddings, funerals, or other occasions. This new release is the sixth volume of Bach’s secular cantatas, and includes Trauerode alongside others. This album is performed by the Bach Collegium Japan.
Carolyn Sampson has enjoyed notable worldwide successes in repertoire ranging from early baroque to present day, in opera, in concert and on disc. Nevertheless, the present recording is, as she writes in her introduction in the CD booklet, something of a début – her first recital disc of songs with piano. When choosing repertoire, she collaborated closely with her pianist, Joseph Middleton and together they chose settings of poems on a floral theme in Russian, English, French and German. The selected songs represent a great diversity, through their different musical styles and affects.
J.S. Bach: Messe in h-Moll, BWV 232 (Mass in B Minor)
Carus
CD
$26.99Sep 11, 2015
Many questions persist surrounding J. S. Bach’s Mass in B minor, one of the master’s most frequently performed vocal works, enigmas and problems that musicologists and performers continue to research or grapple with, including early performance, textual and revision issues. The present new live 2015 recording by the combined forces of the Gächinger Kantorei, Freiburger Barockorchester, conductor Hans-Christoph Rademann and vocal soloists rigorously follows – in the Kyrie and Gloria – Bach’s own meticulously configured “Dresdner Stimmen” [Dresden parts] and is therefore based, for the first time, exclusively on the musical text that emanated from Bach’s pen. Additional movements with marked deviations from the familiar version are accessible as variants as bonus material on Disc Two. Renowned Bach and Mozart scholar Ulrich Leisinger, upon whose new edition of the work this recording is based, also prepared the notes in the accompanying booklet. The Deluxe version also contains a bonus DVD with additional material: Film: Bach’s Secret Legacy – Hans-Christoph Rademann in search of the true B-minor Mass. Also: Bach’s Manuscript: The “Dresden Parts“ of 1733 in PDF format.
Many questions persist surrounding J. S. Bach’s Mass in B minor, one of the master’s most frequently performed vocal works, enigmas and problems that musicologists and performers continue to research or grapple with, including early performance, textual and revision issues. The present new live 2015 recording by the combined forces of the Gächinger Kantorei, Freiburger Barockorchester, conductor Hans-Christoph Rademann and vocal soloists rigorously follows – in the Kyrie and Gloria – Bach’s own meticulously configured “Dresdner Stimmen” [Dresden parts] and is therefore based, for the first time, exclusively on the musical text that emanated from Bach’s pen. Additional movements with marked deviations from the familiar version are accessible as variants as bonus material on Disc Two. Renowned Bach and Mozart scholar Ulrich Leisinger, upon whose new edition of the work this recording is based, also prepared the notes in the accompanying booklet. The Deluxe version also contains a bonus DVD with additional material: Film: Bach’s Secret Legacy – Hans-Christoph Rademann in search of the true B-minor Mass. Also: Bach’s Manuscript: The “Dresden Parts“ of 1733 in PDF format.
Schubert’s empathy with women is evident in his body of songs, which include songs to, by, about and for women. Devised by Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton, the present recital brings us each of those possibilities and more. The playwright Helmina von Chézy wrote the text to the tender Romanze, intending it for the play Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus to which Schubert composed incidental music. Another female author, Marianne von Willemer, wrote the two Suleika poems for Goethe, who included them (under his own name) in the collection West-östlicher Divan. And no less than seven of the other songs on the album are also associated with Goethe, and his characters Mignon (from Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre) and Gretchen (from Faust). Schubert was for a while almost obsessed with the mysterious and waif-like Mignon, making several settings of the poems associated with her. Less of an enigma but equally moving, Schubert’s Gretchen sings of awakening desire (Gretchen am Spinnrade) and laments her coming disgrace (Gretchens Bitte). Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton have collaborated on several acclaimed projects for BIS, most recently with the counter-tenor Iestyn Davies as their companion. Here they close their Soprano’s Schubertiade with three settings of poems by Walter Scott, albeit in German translations. The three ‘Ellen Songs’ are from the verse-romance The Lady of the Lake from 1810, with the last one, ‘Schubert’s Ave Maria’, being one of the composer’s best-known and most loved compositions.
BACH Cantatas: No. 51; No. 210: Spielet, ihr beseelten Lieder. Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn? ihn, BWV 1127 ? Masaaki Suzuki, cond; Carolyn Sampson (sop); Bach Collegium Japan (period instruments) ? BIS SACD-1471 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 71:17 &)
Volume 30 of Masaaki Suzuki?s highly regarded Bach cantata cycle is devoted mainly to Bach?s ?newest? work, the strophic aria ?Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn? ihn,? discovered in May 2005, and quickly authenticated and assigned the BWV number 1127 (thus, it?s separated from the cantatas, which occupy the first 200-plus spots in the catalog). Suzuki?s is the work?s first complete recording; abridged versions came first from Gardiner on his own Soli Deo Gratia label (12 minutes, combined with several other bits and pieces into a sort of cantate imaginaire), and then from Koopman (17 minutes, in Volume 20 of his Challenge cantata series). Frankly, despite the beauty of Carolyn Sampson?s performance with Suzuki?s expert ensemble, Gardiner?s is the version of choice, simply because we don?t need to hear the same damn thing performed 12 times in a row over the course of 48 and a half minutes.
That?s what happens in a complete performance. In 1713, to celebrate the 53rd birthday of Bach?s early employer, Duke Wilhelm Ernst, a local town superintendent named Johann Anthon Mylius wrote 12 stanzas, each verse beginning with the German translation of the duke?s motto, ?Omnia deo et nihil sine eo? (?Everything with God and nothing without him?). The second line of each stanza and the following B section would change, but that second line would evolve in an odd way: only the third word would be replaced, and if you align the first letters of each of those third words you spell out the duke?s name. This is the sort of acrostic game that Bach loved, but it?s strange that he was assigned the task of setting the words to music. He was merely the Weimar court organist, and wouldn?t have any responsibility for writing cantatas until his promotion the following year. Perhaps more senior composers, including several in the Mylius family, had turned down the potentially tedious job. Perhaps the ambitious Bach lobbied for the assignment, hoping it would gain him the sort of attention that would result in the promotion he indeed received within a few months. At any rate, Bach merely wrote out the music for the first verse, intending it to be repeated as the text changed. To understand the acrostic, you need to see the entire text, but hearing the whole thing is hardly necessary. Bach provided an attractive, melismatic melody and an appealing instrumental accompaniment, but enough is enough.
To their credit, Suzuki and his elegant players do vary the instrumental bridges somewhat, and Sampson handles the melody with lovely grace, but it?s not enough to sustain interest for more than three quarters of an hour. All are heard to better effect in Cantata No. 51, a performance that floats and twirls, without losing its center of gravity in the weightier sections. For some reason, the aria ?Spielet, ihr beseelten Lieder? from BWV 210 is appended as a bonus track.
The 5.0 surround sound is, as expected from this source, outstanding in its balance and timbral fidelity, except that the important trumpet part in the outer movements of BWV 51 is too recessed, almost offstage. If you?re compulsively collecting the Suzuki series, there?s no reason to pass this up, but if all you want is BWV 1127, in this case there?s no merit to completism, and the Gardiner sampler is a more attractive option.
Carolyn Sampson and Iestyn Davies have collaborated on many occasions in the field of Baroque opera and oratorio, but on this occasion they venture into a somewhat different territory. In the company of Joseph Middleton, they have been exploring the Lieder for one and two voices of Mendelssohn and Schumann, combining them with songs and duets by Roger Quilter. And even though the disc actually opens with a set of Purcell songs – repertoire which both singers have previously made their mark in – they are here performed with the piano accompaniments realized by Benjamin Britten, turning them into something quite new and different. ‘Creamy’, ‘luminous’ and ‘supple’ are words that often appear in reviews about both Carolyn Sampson and Iestyn Davies, and in these duets they achieve a marvellous blend as well as the utmost precision. They are aided in this by Joseph Middleton, described in The Telegraph (UK) as an ‘unfailingly sensitive accompanist’.
Schumann & Bach: Works for Choir & Orchestra / Hakkinen, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Ondine
CD
$18.99May 11, 2018
Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir led by Aapo Häkkinen join their forces together with an impressive vocal cast in this unique release of rarely heard choral works by Robert Schumann. This recording includes the world première recording of Schumann’s 17-minute Adventlied, Op. 71 for soloists, chorus and orchestra, four choral ballades based on texts by Emanuel Geibel, and Schumann’s version of Bach’s Cantata BWV 105. Robert Schumann wrote in 1850: “Keep in mind that there are also singers, and that the highest in musical expression is achieved through the chorus and orchestra.” This illustrates well the composer’s desire to write large works for this medium in an attempt to create a new genre for the concert hall. Today, they still constitute the least explored area of his output. The elevated style he was aspiring to was unheard-of outside the realm of church music. In fact, whether for the church, opera, or the concert hall, Schumann was looking for a sanctified realm, a Goethe-inspired meeting ground for art and religion. Adventlied, Op. 71, was written in November 1848 to a text from Friedrich Rückert’s Pantheon. Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (EPCC) is one of the best-known Estonian music groups in the world. The repertoire of the choir extends from baroque to contemporary music, focusing on the work of Estonian composers. Helsinki Baroque’s sound has enthralled listeners from the Cologne Philharmonie to Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and at major festivals such as Bergen, Bremen, Rheingau, and Jerusalem.
Reason In Madness - Songs & Arias / Sampson, Middleton
BIS
SACD
$21.99Apr 05, 2019
Throughout history men have feared madwomen, burning them as witches, confining them in asylums and subjecting them to psychoanalysis – yet, they have also been fascinated, unable to resist fantasizing about them. For their new release, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton have created a programme that explores the responses of a variety of composers to women whose stories have left them vulnerable and exposed. As a motto they have chosen an aphorism by Nietzsche: ‘There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.’ Brahms’ Ophelia Songs, composed for a stage production of Hamlet, appear next to those by Richard Strauss and Chausson, while Ophelia's death is described by both Schumann (in Herzeleid) and Saint-Saëns. Goethe’s mysterious and traumatized Mignon appears in settings by Hugo Wolf as well as Duparc, while his ill-used Gretchen grieves by her spinning-wheel in Schubert's matchless setting. Sadness and madness tip into witchery and unbridled eroticism with Pierre Louÿs's poems about Bilitis, set by Kœchlin and Debussy. Sampson and Middleton end their recital as it began, with a suicide by drowning: in Poulenc’s monologue La Dame de Monte-Carlo, the elderly female protagonist has been unlucky at the gambling tables and decides to throw herself into the sea.
Bach: Secular Cantatas Vol 1 / Suzuki, Sampson, Et Al
BIS
CD
$21.99Oct 01, 2004
"While recordings of Bach’s Coffee Cantata abound, the same cannot be said for his spaciously proportioned Wedding Cantata, ‘O holder Tag’. Scored for soprano with flute, oboe d’amore and strings, this last-mentioned piece is unquestionably one of the most vocally challenging of all Bach’s solo voice cantatas, requiring stamina and virtuosity over and above all Bach’s other usual demands. Carolyn Sampson has these challenges well within her grasp and no one is likely to be disappointed by her restrained and delicately poised singing... Comparably successful are the fourth aria, a deliciously pervasive polonaise, and the spirited finale, though throughout the cantata elegance of phrase and transparency of texture take precedence over nuptial high spirits. The Coffee Cantata is a delight from start to finish. Sampson is an almost perfect Liesgen, the willful, headstrong but affectionate daughter of dyspeptic though ultimately indulgent father, Schlendrian. As in the other work, the emphasis in Suzuki’s performance is on refinement of detail rather than animated dialogue. But the little domestic contretemps comes over charmingly and with just enough theatre to hold our attention. Stephen Schreckenberger makes clearer tonal sense of his aria ‘Mädchen, die von harten Sinnen’ than any other bass I know and Sampson’s sublime ‘Heute noch’ is lightly articulated and wholly enchanting."
Album für die Frau - Scenes from the Schumanns' Lieder / Sampson, Middleton
BIS
SACD
$21.99Apr 09, 2021
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 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 signaled the start of a four-decade widowhood during which she resumed her stellar career as a pianist. As a team, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton have released a number of acclaimed discs, including ‘Fleurs’, featuring flower-themed songs by composers from Purcell to Richard Strauss and Britten, ‘A Verlaine Songbook’, exploring settings of the poetry of Paul Verlaine, and ‘A Soprano’s Schubertiade’, a Schubert anthology.
REVIEW:
Amid formidable recorded competition, Sampson is close to the top of the Frauenliebe pantheon. It is high time Joseph Middleton made an album of solo Schumann piano music.
In Gustav Mahler's first four symphonies many of the themes originate in his own settings of folk poems from the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy's Magic Horn). A case in point, Symphony No.?4 is built around a single song, Das himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life) which Mahler had composed some eight years earlier, in 1892. The song presents a child's vision of Heaven and is hinted at throughout the first three movements. In the fourth, marked ‘Sehr behaglich’ (Very comfortably), the song is heard in full from a solo soprano instructed by Mahler to sing: ‘with serene, childlike expression; completely without parody!’ The symphony is scored for a typically large, late-romantic orchestra (though without trombones and tuba) and an extensive percussion section which includes sleigh bells as well as glockenspiel. However, Mahler mostly deploys his forces with a transparency and lightness more akin to chamber music or eighteenth-century models like Mozart or Haydn. The Fourth has become one of his best-loved symphonies and is here performed by Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä, joined by the angelic voice of English soprano Carolyn Sampson.
REVIEWS:
This is a difficult symphony to hold together and far too many performances are let down by indifferently realised finales. Vänskä connects it very well to the closing mood of the third movement, but an immense responsibility lies on the soprano soloist in the closing Das himmlische Liebe from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. The Klemperer studio recording was fatally undermined by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf’s too-knowing, overly sophisticated, rendition: the work needs a mixture of radiance and simplicity – this is a child’s vision of heaven, with Saint Martha in the kitchen. I have never heard the piece as I hear it in my head, but Carolyn Sampson captures very much of the radiance, despite some darkness in the lower register and some indifferent articulation. Perhaps the ideal voice would be that of a younger Emma Kirkby, and she certainly performed the piece, notably with Norrington at the Carnegie in 2001, but, to the best of my knowledge, never recorded it.
The first two movements are splendidly realized, combining poetry with a sense of momentum, and just the right touch of the spectral in the soloist’s tuned-up violin in the second movement.
The quality of recording is beautifully clear – as one expects from BIS – and I like very much their robust, bio-friendly, slim packaging, a huge improvement on easily-broken jewel cases.
Make no mistake: this Mahler 4 ranks with the very best, and I shall return to it very often.
– MusicWeb International
This cast does not generate as dreamy, airy, wafting textures as those of Szell and Bernstein; the textures here are plainer but make something no less convincing: the matter-of-fact clarinet, the barely-poco-vibrato string tone, and Sampson’s warm but never sugary tone.
Some will complain that Vänskä still doesn’t conduct Mahler as we know and love; judging by only the second movement, I would agree. But for the rest, I find his approach perfectly subjective and cinematic. The outstanding recording quality and superb musicians combine with Vänskä’s light touch to make a wonderful addition to this cycle.
Bach: Secular Cantatas, Vol. 10: Cantatas of Contentment / Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan
BIS
SACD
$10.99$21.99Save 50%Sep 07, 2018
Robert von Bahr, CEO of BIS Records, writes of this release: “When we finished the Bach Sacred Cantatas there was an emptiness with us all participants, which was - partly - alleviated by the fact that there were several records of secular Cantatas still to be recorded. And now we are at the bitter end of those as well, and there are no more Bach Cantatas to be recorded. After 23 years of a steady diet of Bach Cantatas, to be without them is brutal and cruel. All the better, then, that we have finished on a high point. Carolyn Sampson’s singing in the solo cantata BWV 204 beggars belief - it is as close to Heaven one can hope to come on this Earth. Big words, and yet too small for what she does. This is the crowning glory of a series that has transformed my life and given me so much more fulfillment that I could possibly have hoped for. Thank you, Masaaki and your faithful BCJ, for creating a musical treasure possible to be treasured by a grateful mankind.”
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REVIEWS:
This issue completes one of the great modern recording odysseys, being the final disc of complete surviving secular cantatas from Bach Collegium Japan. The Bach Collegium Japan sing and play as satisfyingly as they have done since their foundation in 1990 and the hero of the disc, as ever, is Masaaki Suzuki. His sense of the tempo giusto in this music is unerring, and his response to the sprightly dance measures is always infectious.
– MusicWeb International
We celebrate here, as always, many of Suzuki’s finest qualities of expressive lucidity, unforced coherence, and the quiet nobility of one serving the music as the most natural of reflexes.
Carolyn Sampson’s ever-inspiring contributions close the project with Ich bin in mir vernügt, a little-known solo soprano cantata compared to the Nos 51, 199, and 210s of this world. Just when one thought it impossible to hear Bach sung any better than in her recent performance of No 105 (arr. Schumann—Ondine, 8/18), she brings an Arcadian coloration to ‘Meine Seele sei vernügt’, placing her among the finest exponents on record of this composer’s peerlessly demanding soprano-writing.
A singer with an exciting presence and a voice to immerse yourself in. A band that lit up with high wattage a repertoire including both standards and popular songs. A band leader who had his ensemble under control through proven discipline and could, when needed, take the lead as a soloist, but tended to hold back amidst his all-stars. The result a mixture that whisked the concert hall in Freiburg (Germany) for one evening in October 1959 into a wonderful world of successful jazz entertainment and sent the audience out into the night with an earworm.
That Baïlèro, a shepherd’s song from the highlands of Auvergne sung in the Occitan dialect of the area, should become a favorite with singers ranging from Victoria de los Angeles to Sarah Brightman by way of Renée Fleming and Karita Mattila, is all because of Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret. As a budding composer in Paris in the 1900s, Canteloube was unable to interest himself in the various musical cliques and currents. Instead he looked for inspiration in Auvergne in central France where he was born, starting to collect the songs of the farmers and shepherds that lived in the mountainous region. But he did so as a composer rather than a musicologist, and between 1923 and 1954 he published a total of thirty Chants d’Auvergne, arranged, harmonized and sumptuously orchestrated. The result is, one might say, idealized folk music: Canteloube largely respects the melodic line of the originals, but adds instrumental introductions, interludes and postludes, and gives an important role to the woodwind section. For the present disc, Carolyn Sampson and Pascal Rophé have selected 25 of the songs – ranging from love songs and lullabies to working songs and laments. They perform them together with Tapiola Sinfonietta, bringing sparkle to Canteloube's luxurious scores halfway between the impressionism of Debussy and the bucolic lyricism of d'Indy.
Song composition has been a constant in British music since the lute and consort works of the early seventeenth century. By 1900, it had developed into a sophisticated genre embraced by almost all serious composers. The music on this amply-filled disc illustrates the diversity of British song-writing and it's transformation over a century: from Vaughan Williams's Orpheus and his Lute (ca 1901) to Huw Watkins's Five Larkin Songs, composed in 2010 for Carolyn Sampson, who performs them here. Together with Joseph Middleton, her partner on several acclaimed recital discs, she has devised a highly contrasting programme bookended by two groups of songs by William Walton - A Song for the Lord Mayor's Table from 1962, celebrating the diversity of London, and three songs from Façade, the 'entertainment' with which the young composer gained both fame and notoriety in 1923. These frame settings by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Roger Quilter and Frank Bridge of poetry by writers from Shakespeare and Shelley to Keats and Yeats. In comparison, the anti-romantic poems by Philip Larkin have been described as marked by 'a very English, glum accuracy'. Huw Watkins (b. 1976) has selected texts from across Larkin's output, catching the various moods - ranging from a certain unsentimental nostalgia to the poet's seemingly habitual pessimism - in settings that often carry a bittersweet sting in the tail.
Victorious Love - Purcell / Sampson, Cummings, Kenny, Et Al
BIS
SACD
$21.99Aug 01, 2007
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
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More Sampson and delight: first-class Purcell like this is much too rare
-- Gramophone [12/2007]
A fine flowing line, great virtuoso technique yet also expressive feeling.
Purcell’s song output is extensive. Zimmerman, in his analytical catalogue of his music, the Z numbers in the heading, identifies five categories. All are represented in the nineteen songs of this anthology from Carolyn Sampson.
The fullest coverage is of the seven songs from Purcell’s semi-operas, four from The Fairy Queen. ‘Now the night is chas’d away’ (tr. 9), the first song in Act 4, is given pacy, gleeful treatment by Sampson and, while there’s no chorus on hand to supply the choral repeats, the concluding instrumental ritornello has matching verve. The first song in Act 5, ‘Thrice happy lovers’ (tr. 11), Juno’s blessing, is delivered smilingly yet with enough virtuoso display to impress, the aria section, “Be to one another true” (1:40) quieter as befits its more serious manner yet still with pleasingly varied, regal application of ornamentation in repeated phrases. Sampson’s style throughout has absolute assurance. The first song in Act 3 (tr. 17), is of a more philosophic nature, with an instrumental version as prelude so you can admire its courtly progress, climax and gentle falling away. The music and performance perfectly mirrors the bittersweet ambivalence of the text exemplified in the opening line, ‘If love’s a sweet passion, why does it torment?’. Lastly ‘O let me weep’, the Plaint (tr. 4), a self-contained little scena added to Act 5 in the 1693 revival where the mourning for the departed lover and isolation of the singer is echoed by obbligato solo violin. Sampson and violinist Sarah Sexton maintain a delicate balance between stark plainness, as in the violin’s first echo of the singer’s “sighs” and the naturally florid embellishment of the melodic line, in particular at cadences. So after a display of this kind by the violin from 4:21 the quiet voice entry is more affecting and the sotto voce pathos of the closing section, “He’s gone”, punctuated from 6:30 by one note violin sighs, are the more effective. Emma Kirkby’s 1982 recording in her Purcell song anthology (L’Oiseau-Lyre 475 9109), timing at 6:32 in comparison with Sampson’s 7:23, is more urgent and plangent against which the steady ground bass makes for tension through contrast. Sampson presents a more savoured, Italianate outpouring of grief.
There are three other semi-opera items. From Act 3 of The Indian Queen ‘I attempt from love’s sickness to fly in vain’ (tr. 13) is treated by Sampson as a light, soubrettish sort of song, comely enough, with a fluent, airy delivery, graceful ornamentation and an effective pause at the beginning of the final refrain, enjoying mulling over the experience. However, the animation of ‘They tell us that you might powers above’ (tr. 5) from Act 4 is, I feel, overdone for this more serious song whose second strain seems thrust forward so that its closing semiquaver clusters, however delicately delivered by Sampson, seem breathless. The instrumental version which follows, timing at 1:15 against the comparable opening verse’s 1:04, has more suitable breadth. Nancy Argenta’s opening verse in 1995 in her Purcell song anthology (Virgin 5 61866 2) is 6 seconds slower than Sampson’s, which gives it a somewhat more intent nature. Sampson’s last semi-opera item, from Act 5 of King Arthur, is ‘Fairest isle’ (tr. 15), Venus’ song with a nicely graced instrumental prelude that sets the tone for the luxuriant smooth, flowing, serene singing with intimate continuo and more elaborate ornamentation for the second verse tempered by quieter delivery. I find the effect beautifully jewel-like though some might feel it excessive.
Another Zimmerman category is songs in incidental music for the theatre of which there are three on this SACD. The disc takes its title from the upbeat concluding section (tr. 1 2:30) of ‘Sweeter than roses’, exuberantly delivered after the soft opulence of the vocal opening enhanced by sultry theorbo and expressive bass viol, all finely controlled with vivid “trembling” and focus on the keyword “kiss”. ‘Music for a while’ (tr. 8) also begins softly, the tone here notably clean, opening out at “wond’ring” and with sensitively added ornamentation for the repetitions of “eas’d” so that very addition seems part of the relaxation expressed. ‘Man is for the woman made’ (tr. 6) is performed by Sampson as a party piece, including a tipsy rising glissando on “liquor” and an outrageous but terrific virtuoso roulade on “serenade”.
Of the category songs in odes comes just ‘The bashful Thames’ (tr. 12) from the Yorkshire Feast Song. Two violins take the original obbligato accompaniment for two recorders here which makes for a more refined backing to which Sampson provides a stylish front, making the contrast tell between the cowed descents of “drooping” and confident ascents of “tow’ring”.
Sampson sings six of Purcell’s secular solo songs. The second, more elaborate setting of ‘If music be the food of love’ (tr. 10) is one of contemplative virtuosity, taking in thrumming demisemiquavers to illustrate “joy”. ‘O solitude’ (tr. 16) is plainer but kept flowing and intense because of its remorseless ground bass. Sampson’s soft close is movingly evocative of the title and subject of the song’s veneration. But Argenta’s 1992 recording here is calmer, with a little more space, timing at 5:26 against Sampson’s 5:18, with just archlute accompaniment more inward and contemplative, a quieter, plainer delivery, the wide vocal range from middle C to high G effective enough without further emphasis. Sampson’s account has bass viol too, making the ground bass more prominent while Sampson makes the text more dramatic, partly through more ornamentation which shows both more imagination and artifice. ‘From silent shades’ (tr. 7) is the mad song of Bess of Bedlam with contrasting tempi mirroring mood swings, slowing at the vision of the dead loved one, then from Sampson a display of warbling elegy with an electrifying octave glissando rising at “forth”, but in the main coming across as a crafted, almost documentary study of a sad state. She isn’t as wonderfully direct or has such touchingly naïve brightness of tone and simplicity of presentation as Emma Kirkby who is pacier, 3:43 against Sampson’s 4:31, lighter yet more dramatic. Sampson offers us a more lingering experience with fine shaping of line and more contrasted sections. ‘The fatal hour’ (tr. 2) begins in elaborate declamation but after Sampson’s poised and tender “Sure when you go, my heart will break” is transformed into a more flowing love song. ‘Oh! fair Cedaria’ (tr. 14) is supremely crafted and sung as it moves from an opening section of swooning admiration, through a central happy contemplation of the loved one’s beauty and charms to a closing “pity me” appeal. Based on a jig, ‘When first Amintas sued for a kiss’ (tr. 3) is a jolly, racy piece allowing singer and harpsichord to let their hair down with tempi artfully varied to point the story. Sampson is more forthright and dramatic, with denser and busier accompaniment than Emma Kirkby’s lute alone. Kirkby is quieter but with a very knowing manner and subtler variation of pace.
Finally Sampson gives us two of Purcell’s sacred songs. ‘Tell me, some pitying angel’, the Blessed Virgin’s expostulation (tr. 18) is a scena tracing Mary’s emotions when the 12-year-old Jesus goes missing. Sampson’s opening well conveys the initial flood of anxiety soon tempered by a more contemplative hoping he is safe. Then there’s a more intimate manner of tender care questioning why he disappeared. But I felt Sampson’s repeated calls to Gabriel a touch too swift for full dramatic and anguished impact. Sampson makes the second section, “Me Judah’s daughters once caress’d” a happy recollection and the contrast at the close of trusting the God but fearing for the child is finely poised. Nancy Argenta’s 1992 recording isn’t as varied and tender early on as Sampson’s but does give the calls to Gabriel more urgency and space, more contrast to the third section, “Now fatal change” and a more vivid questioning perplexity to the fourth, “How shall my soul its motions guide”. Lastly from Sampson, an Evening Hymn, ‘Now that the sun hath veil’d his light’ (tr. 19), with just theorbo accompaniment, is presented as an intimate nocturne, the voice softly complementing, smooth yet flowing, the presentation much plainer than hitherto with not a trill in sight, a refreshing close which shows Sampson and her accomplices still have the capacity to surprise.
To sum up, this is a well varied selection, as stylishly sung as those by Argenta and Kirkby. The inclusion of the ‘authentic’ instrumental versions of some songs is a welcome bonus. The SACD recording brings both intimacy and spaciousness, placing you in vivid proximity to the singer and players. Moreover, in a fascinating booklet note Elizabeth Kenny refers to an intention to make the disc different with flexibility in interpretation and use of instruments reflecting the way Purcell’s music was transmitted in the half century after his death rather than seeking a more chaste, urtext manner. As I’ve noted above, where Sampson is at her most daring she’s most striking. Not everything comes off: in ‘They tell us that you mighty powers’ and the Blessed Virgin’s expostulation I feel the momentum sometimes impairs the emotive impact. But mostly there’s a fine flowing line, great virtuoso technique yet also expressive feeling fully revealing Purcell is one of the greatest English song writers.
