Joseph Middleton - Elysium - A Schubert Recital - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

Composed in feverish bouts interrupted by long periods of inaction, Hugo Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch was brought to completion in 1896. The 46 songs are settings of poems in German by Paul Heyse, after Italian folk songs - miniatures with a duration of less than 2 minutes in most cases. Heyse's collection numbered more than 350 poems, but Wolf ignored the ballads and laments, and concentrated almost exclusively on the rispetti. These are short love poems which chart, against a Tuscan landscape, the everyday jealousies, flirtations, joys and despairs of men and women in love. Heyse's translations often intensify the simple Italian of the original poems, and in their turn, Wolf's settings represent a further heightening of emotion. Miniatures they may be, but many of the songs strike unforgettably at the heart. When Wolf's songbook is performed in it's entirety, it is usually done by a male and a female singer, although this is not specified in the score. It is not uncommon for them to be transposed, but the songs are written for high voices, and are here performed by a soprano and a tenor - Carolyn Sampson and Alan Clayton - with Joseph Middleton at the piano. The performers have chosen to present the songs in the order they appear in the printed collection, dividing them between themselves.

Renowned performers Iestyn Davies and Joseph Middleton perform Schubert's tragic song-cycle Die schöne Müllerin (The Beautiful Maid of the Mill). Adapting poetry by Wilhelm Müller, the genesis of D. 795 marks the beginning of the end of Schubert's life; he discovered that he had contracted syphilis sometime in late 1822 or early 1823, and it was in 1823 that he composed this tale of a poet-singer who dies in the aftermath of erotic experience. Released under the own tag of St John's College, Cambridge, this recording acts as a celebration of Iestyn Davies's formative period at the college; beginning there as a 7-year-old probationer in 1987, he progressed to become Head Chorister, before ultimately returning to study as a choral scholar. Alongside full texts and translations, the booklet includes a background on the work by noted Lied expert Susan Youens, as well as reflections on Iestyn's time at St John's from the College's past and present Directors of Music - Christopher Robinson and Andrew Nethsingha.

?James Newby wished to dedicate his second disc on BIS to his sister Laura who passed away in 2015, her daughter and his mother. After singing Gerald Finzi's 'Fear no more the heat o' the sun' at her funeral, he felt it fitting that the cycle from which it is taken, Let us Garlands Bring, would form the centrepiece of the programme. Alongside this cycle, pianist Joseph Middleton and Newby have designed a programme of English songs that reflect on themes of loss, grief and death - but also joy, love and healing with varying styles, sound worlds and atmospheres. George Butterworth, Rebecca Clarke, Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, Liza Lehmann and Errollyn Wallen are just some of the composers who complete the programme, including Arthur Somervell with his cycle 'A Shropshire Lad'. Like Heinrich Heine's poems that Schumann used for his famous cycle Dichterliebe, these poems by Alfred Edward Housman deal with unrequited love in first person lyrics. This disc ends on a lighter note with the whimsical song, 'The Green-eyed Dragon' by Wolseley Charles, which often concludes live performances as an encore.