Carolyn Sampson & Joseph Middleton – Reason in Madness (2019) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

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 album, 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

Tracklist:
1 Opheilia-Lieder, WoO 22 (Excerpts): No. 4, Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloß
2 Herzeleid, Op. 107 No. 101:43
3 6 Lieder, Op. 67, TrV 238 (Excerpts): No. 1, Wie erkenn ich mein Treulieb vor andern nun?
4 6 Lieder, Op. 67, TrV 238 (Excerpts): No. 2, Guten Morgen, ‘s ist Sankt Valentinstag
5 6 Lieder, Op. 67, TrV 238 (Excerpts): No. 3, Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloß
6 Chansons de Bilitis, Op. 39: No. 1, Hymne à Astarté
7 Chansons de Bilitis, L. 90: No. 1, La flûte de Pan
8 Chansons de Bilitis, L. 90: No. 2, La chevelure
9 Chansons de Bilitis, L. 90: No. 3, Le tombeau des naïades
10 Chansons de Bilitis, Op. 39: No. 5, Épitaphe de Bilitis
11 Romance de Mignon, Op. 2 No. 304:26
12 Goethe-Lieder (Excerpts): No. 9, Kennst du das Land
13 Goethe-Lieder (Excerpts): No. 5, Mignon I “Heiß mich nicht reden”
14 Goethe-Lieder (Excerpts): No. 6, Mignon II “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt”
15 Goethe-Lieder (Excerpts): No. 7, Mignon III “So lasst mich scheiden, bis ich werde”
16 Gretchen am Spinnrade, Op. 2, D. 118
17 Mädchenlied, Op. 107 No. 5
18 Die Spinnerin, Op. 107 No. 4
19 La mort d’Ophélie
20 Chansons de Shakespeare, Op. 28: No. 3, Chanson d’Ophélie
21Opheilia-Lieder, WoO 22 (Excerpts): No. 1, Wie erkenn ich dein Treublieb?
22 Au pays où se fait la guerre
23 La Dame de Monte-Carlo, FP 180 (Arr. for Voice & Piano)