120 August2019nstereophile.com
RECORD REVIEWS
she leads us into other Ophelia songs,
by Schumann and Strauss; Saint-Saëns’
and Chausson’s surface later on the
recording.
Sampson and Middleton also give us
the most mind-opening version of
Debussy’s three Chansons de Bilitis I’ve
ever heard. Debussy’s glorious, haunting
settings are based on a major fiction:
Pierre Louÿs passed his poems off as
translations of love poems he attributed
to Sappho, which purportedly were
found on the walls of an ancient tomb
in Cyprus; in fact, they were veiled
depictions of his own sexual exploits in
Algeria. Sampson eschews the approach
taken on the very different but equally
definitive recordings of the songs by
women who worked with Debussy—
Maggie Teyte (with Alfred Cortot)
and Jane Bathori (self-accompanied).
Instead of depicting “Bilitis” as a deeply
feeling, emotionally charged innocent,
Sampson’s protagonist teeters on the
line between love and madness.
Middleton sets the stage for this re-
envisioning with his intentionally er-
ratic solo opening. As Sampson begins
to sing, with uncommon intimacy, she
and Middleton indulge in more tempo
modifications and unwritten pauses
than even Teyte dared. She may not
be the equal of her predecessor in the
unforgettable, profound, hollow empti-
ness that Teyte brought to the line “Les
satyres sont morts,” but Sampson’s
carefully judged and supremely musi-
cal silences are as telling as the notes
themselves. Sampson and Middleton’s
distinctly 21st-century approach to this
masterpiece may lead you to rethink
what you think you know about De-
bussy interpretation.
Among the other gems here are two
infrequently encountered songs by
Henri Duparc—“Romance de Mignon”
and “Au pays où se fait la guerre” (To
the Land where there is War)—two
others by Koechlin, and four of Wolf’s
Mignon-Lieder. Art song lovers will
find it hard to resist comparing Samp-
son’s Strauss, Wolf, and Schubert with
recordings by Schwarzkopf, Lehmann,
and other greats. Sampson can’t touch
Schwarzkopf’s magnificently over-the-
top rendition of Schubert’s “Gretchen
am Spinnrade” (Gretchen at the Spin-
ning Wheel), but she’s marvelously
expressive in the Strauss.
This recital is so rich that you may
prefer to sample it in small doses, lest
you become oversaturated. I can’t get
the performance of the Bilitis songs
out of my head.— Jason Victor SerinusCAROLYN SAMPSON
Reason in Madness
Carolyn Sampson, soprano, Joseph Middleton, piano.
BIS BIS-2353 (SACD). 2019. Jens Braun, eng.;
Robert Suff, prod. DDD. TT: 74:50
PERFORMANCE
SONICS
In her most fascinating and expressive
art song recording to date, soprano
Carolyn Sampson explores some of the
unhinged, deranged, “hysterical,” and
hopelessly love-stricken women who
have become both subjects and objects
of fantasy projection for a number of
male authors and composers. Quot-
ing Nietzsche— “There is always some
madness in love. But there is also
always some reason in madness”—
Sampson offers multiple takes on one
of literature’s favorite madwomen,
Ophelia, and also addresses Mignon,
Louÿs/Debussy’s fictional Bilitis, and
Cocteau/Poulenc’s “La Dame de
Monte-Carlo.”
I don’t think I’ve encountered an art
song recital as probing and provocative
as this one. With Joseph Middleton
acting as more than accompanist—he’s
a deeply insightful interpreter—the
results are intellectually fascinating and
aesthetically compelling. Abetted by a
superbly balanced 24/96 recording—
available as a download or a hybrid
SACD—that sets voice and piano be-
hind the speakers in a natural-sounding
acoustic, Sampson and Middleton
move beyond abundant beauty of
sound to explore deep recesses of the
human psyche.
To set the tone, Sampson does some-
thing unusual: She begins by singing
one of Brahms’ five Ophelia-Lieder
(Songs of Ophelia), “Sie trugen ihn
auf der Bahre bloss” (“They bore him
bare-faced on the bier”), without the
intended accompaniment. Sounding
naked and vulnerable, she renders the
song more haunting than when it reap-
pears, along with its four companions
and Brahms’ accompaniment, later in
the program. With the plaintive purity
of her lone voice echoing in our heads,JOHN LUTHER ADAMS
Become Desert
Seattle Symphony, Women of the Seattle Symphony
Chorale, Ludovic Morlot, cond.
Canteloupe Music CA 21148 (24/96 WAV). 2019.
Nathaniel Reichman, Dmitriy Lipay, prods./surround
engs.; Dmitriy Lipay, Alexander Lipay, engs.;
DDD. TT: 40:22
PERFORMANCE
SONICS
A glowing successor to John Luther
Adams’ 2013 Pulitzer Prize- and
Grammy Award-winning Become
Ocean, Become Desert creates a luminous
surround-scape in which every open-
ing cactus blossom, every sparkling
grain of sand, and every gust of wind
assumes cosmic significance. An entire-
ly different and far more harmonious
work than Henry Brant’s Ice Field—this
issue’s Recording of the Month—Be-
come Desert bears similarities to but goes
deeper than all the New Age ambient
recordings I’ve encountered.
Adams describes this, his second
commission for the Seattle Symphony,
as both a celebration of natural deserts
and a lamentation for deserts created.
The premiere positioned five ensem-
bles around Seattle’s Benaroya Hall—
Adams composed the piece for that
venue’s acoustic—each playing at dif-
ferent tempos. Most predominant on
the recording are what the composer
termed “lots of bells and chimes”—
glockenspiel, crotales, chimes, tubular
bells, and handbells. These glistening
sounds contrast the near-subterranean
rumble of percussion—presumably the
threat—that surfaces later in the piece
but never dominates.
Readers with multichannel systems
may gravitate toward the physical set’s
bonus DVD, which includes a 5.1 mix
enhanced visually by Adams’ desert
photos, or the 9.1 Dolby Atmos down-
load available from Acoustic Sounds. I
haven’t heard the physical CD, but the
24/96 stereo download captures Become
Desert’s multidimensional and surprising-
ly dramatic elements and has the power
to induce the altered state I experienced
at the premiere.— Jason Victor Serinus
CLASSICAL