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Elysium - A Schubert Recital

Carolyn Sampson

Classical - Released March 3, 2023 | BIS

Booklet
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Elysium (the Elysian Fields) was a Greek notion of the positive afterlife that dates back as far as Homer. The early Romantics were fascinated by its resonances, and if the organizing principle of this recital by the increasingly Schubert-oriented soprano Carolyn Sampson seems a bit vague, well, so was the concept in Schubert's time. It extended into realms of sleep, ghost stories, the moon and stars, and really many kinds of spirituality -- religious and otherwise. CD buyers get an enlightening booklet note by the song historian Susan Youens that amplifies the tightly woven sequence of songs Sampson offers here. There are a few Schubert hits, but also some lieder that only Schubert buffs will have heard, such as the title track, setting a lengthy ode by Schiller. The program is one that Sampson and accompanist managed to perform in recital at the height of the pandemic, and it is clear that she has lived in the songs for a while and knows their little turns. In general, it is a delightfully moody set that features deep interaction between Sampson and Joseph Middleton, with the latter grabbing the listener's attention right from the opening bars. Sampson's voice in mid-career has developed a slight and not unpleasant metallic tinge that she deploys well in the reflective moods of these songs and that blooms startlingly in the final melodrama Abschied von der Erde, D. 829. Consider the knife's-edge opening long note in Nacht und Träume, D. 827, also a splendid example of Middleton's art. With excellent Potton Hall sound, this is an absorbing Schubert recital that will bring new insights.© James Manheim /TiVo