Carolyn Sampson - Schubert's Four Seasons (2025) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

After A Soprano’s Schubertiade (BIS2343) and Elysium (BIS2573), Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton present a new recital devoted to Schubert’s songs on the theme of the changing seasons.

While there have also been other successful celebrations of the four seasons in music, Franz Schubert, a lover of nature, here evokes them in his lieder. Winter, imbued with nostalgia, is represented here by three songs in which the Schubertian hero sings of lost love. But gloomy thoughts soon give way to spring, synonymous with optimism and hope as nature returns to life: ‘Welcome, with your happy swarm of newly awakened creatures around me.’ If life is in full swing during the summer, the hero now seems uncertain about the happy outcome of his quest for love. In autumn, evoked here by six songs, the hero can only acknowledge his failure, reflected by nature preparing for a months-long sleep: ‘Ah, as the stars disappear in the sky, so does life’s hope fade away.’

Clarinettist Michael Collins joins the duo for one song, Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, Schubert’s penultimate composition. Inspired by yodelling, this extended lied ends with the hope of a better life, with spring just around the corner and the prophetic words of ‘now I shall prepare/to go a-wandering’ heralding the composer’s approaching death.

TRACKLIST

1. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Sehnsucht, D. 879
2. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Der Winterabend, D. 938
3. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Lied (Die Mutter Erde), D. 788
4. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Frühlingsglaube, D. 686
5. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Nachtviolen, D. 752
6. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, D. 965
7. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Die Mainacht, D. 194
8. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Mein Gruß an den Mai, D. 305
9. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Im Frühling, D. 882
10. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Schäfers Klagelied, D. 121
11. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Die Forelle, D. 550
12. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Heidenröslein, D. 257
13. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Die Rose, D. 745
14. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Die Sommernacht, D. 289b
15. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Herbst, D. 945
16. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: An den Mond in einer Herbstnacht, D. 614
17. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Erntelied, D. 434
18. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Herbstlied, D. 502
19. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Im Freien, D. 880
20. Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton, Michael Collins - Schubert: Rastlose Liebe, D. 138



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