Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton - Fleurs (2015)

Nearly everyone who has listened to Baroque vocal music in the 21st century knows the name and voice of British soprano Carolyn Sampson, so many will be surprised to learn that this is her debut solo recital album. Replicating a concert program Sampson has often performed with pianist Joseph Middleton, it is here recorded in sublimely accurate SACD sound at Suffolk's Potton Hall. Song aficionados may enjoy trying to deduce the structure of the program from the plain track listing on the CD's back cover: clearly the theme is flowers, but how are the 24 tracks subdivided after the initial group that's all about roses? After this is a group of Richard Strauss songs titled "Strauss's Flowermaidens," and then a highly original grouping of Schumann and Schubert songs on the theme "When blooms speak." Finally there's "Un bouquet française," a diverse collection of French songs from the 19th and early 20th centuries. As it happens, Sampson is as effective in this Romantic and early modern repertory as she is in Handel and Bach. She inhabits all three languages effectively, and the program hangs together very well: most of the material is on the sadder side and doesn't go much beyond medium tempo (there is no Heidenröslein or anything like it). The music is affecting, the singer confident, the accompanist (who had a big hand in devising the program) sensitive, and the engineering superb. A highly recommended recital.

Review by James Manheim, Allmusic.com

Amid a clutch of floral favourites – say, Purcell’s ‘Sweeter than roses’ (in Britten’s flamboyant arrangement), Schumann’s ‘Jasminenstrauch’ and Fauré’s ‘Les roses d’Ispahan’ – Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton range well off the beaten track to embrace such rarities as Lili Boulanger’s dreamy, liquescent ‘Les lilas qui avaient fleuri’ and Strauss’s beguiling Mädchenblumen songs. Always a lovely Baroque singer, Sampson vividly suggests the mounting erotic excitement of ‘Sweeter than roses’, often sung merely as a sweet love song. But with hints of deeper colours in her vernal soprano, she is hardly less persuasive in Romantic song. She sings Schubert’s ‘Die Blumensprache’ and ‘Im Haine’ with fresh, smiling tone, gracefully negotiating the ornamental turns and melismas. To Schumann’s fragile, self-communing miniatures she brings an ideal delicacy and Innigkeit, not least in the gently floated high notes and magical pianissimo close of the rare ‘Die Blume der Ergebung’. Here and elsewhere Middleton creates limpid, luminous textures and reveals a subtle feeling for Schummanesque rubato.

If Sampson sounds slightly stretched by the climax of ‘Mohnblumen’, most extrovert of the Mädchenblumen songs, her silver-spun lines and radiance in alt make for enchanting performances of ‘Kornblumen’, with its long, Italianate cantilena, and the mysterious ‘Wasserrose’. In Britten’s unquiet Pushkin setting ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ her purity of timbre and relative restraint are just as moving as the more unbridled performance by Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich (Decca, 6/70). In French song, too, Sampson is in her element, whether in the blithe, seductive grace of Gounod’s ‘Le temps des roses’ or the hothouse torpor of Debussy’s ‘De fleurs’, where she and Middleton respond sensitively to the sultry, shifting harmonies. After so much languor and wistfulness, the mingled passion and playful mockery – nicely caught by Sampson – of Chabrier’s ‘Toutes les fleurs!’ provides a delectable envoi to an imaginatively planned, beautifully executed recital that charms and touches by turns.

Review by Richard Wigmore, Gramophone

Exact Audio Copy V1.1 from 23. June 2015

EAC extraction logfile from 10. November 2015, 22:43

Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton / Fleurs

Used drive : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GU70N Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" %source%


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 3:40.66 | 0 | 16565
2 | 3:40.66 | 3:29.47 | 16566 | 32287
3 | 7:10.38 | 2:26.68 | 32288 | 43305
4 | 9:37.31 | 1:24.59 | 43306 | 49664
5 | 11:02.15 | 4:03.66 | 49665 | 67955
6 | 15:06.06 | 2:25.34 | 67956 | 78864
7 | 17:31.40 | 3:04.47 | 78865 | 92711
8 | 20:36.12 | 3:27.15 | 92712 | 108251
9 | 24:03.27 | 2:03.06 | 108252 | 117482
10 | 26:06.33 | 1:17.69 | 117483 | 123326
11 | 27:24.27 | 3:33.10 | 123327 | 139311
12 | 30:57.37 | 3:55.37 | 139312 | 156973
13 | 34:52.74 | 2:18.37 | 156974 | 167360
14 | 37:11.36 | 2:30.31 | 167361 | 178641
15 | 39:41.67 | 0:48.37 | 178642 | 182278
16 | 40:30.29 | 3:11.47 | 182279 | 196650
17 | 43:42.01 | 1:39.73 | 196651 | 204148
18 | 45:21.74 | 2:53.18 | 204149 | 217141
19 | 48:15.17 | 2:03.05 | 217142 | 226371
20 | 50:18.22 | 1:21.63 | 226372 | 232509
21 | 51:40.10 | 3:23.14 | 232510 | 247748
22 | 55:03.24 | 5:46.51 | 247749 | 273749
23 | 60:50.00 | 2:42.62 | 273750 | 285961
24 | 63:32.62 | 5:17.19 | 285962 | 309755


Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename C:\temp\BIS-SACD-2102 - Fleurs - Sampson, Middleton\Fleurs.wav

Peak level 96.1 %
Extraction speed 2.3 X
Range quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 719FAEB0
Copy CRC 719FAEB0
Copy OK

No errors occurred


AccurateRip summary

Track 1 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [D0786802] (AR v2)
Track 2 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [2FBD25F0] (AR v2)
Track 3 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [079C27CA] (AR v2)
Track 4 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [579F68C9] (AR v2)
Track 5 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [469F5CDE] (AR v2)
Track 6 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [40EB9DFB] (AR v2)
Track 7 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [EF1C773A] (AR v2)
Track 8 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [A7D3EF71] (AR v2)
Track 9 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [C22F0A18] (AR v2)
Track 10 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [3D34E315] (AR v2)
Track 11 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [ACC1B4C4] (AR v2)
Track 12 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [56C789DD] (AR v2)
Track 13 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [58CCEB68] (AR v2)
Track 14 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [CEEF3575] (AR v2)
Track 15 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [C66761BA] (AR v2)
Track 16 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [4F9F64B7] (AR v2)
Track 17 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [8DD71780] (AR v2)
Track 18 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [E75B6956] (AR v2)
Track 19 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [C1C7DE88] (AR v2)
Track 20 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [B106DADE] (AR v2)
Track 21 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [DEA08AD3] (AR v2)
Track 22 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [E4309BF6] (AR v2)
Track 23 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [BBCE63C9] (AR v2)
Track 24 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [84E0975A] (AR v2)

All tracks accurately ripped

End of status report

==== Log checksum F509E84266627E6249EECC3BC4805E4B126E46D296D30BEF4F1466C7772114CA ====

foobar2000 1.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2016-08-28 19:18:02

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton / Fleurs
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR12 -0.39 dB -19.06 dB 3:41 01-Henry Purcell / Benjamin Britten: Sweeter than roses
DR13 -3.55 dB -24.53 dB 3:30 02-Robert Schumann: Meine Rose, Op. 90 No. 2
DR14 -3.75 dB -24.40 dB 2:27 03-Robert Schumann: Röselein, Röselein! Op. 89 No. 6
DR13 -2.04 dB -23.28 dB 1:25 04-Roger Quilter: Damask Roses
DR13 -1.99 dB -22.34 dB 4:04 05-Benjamin Britten: The Nightingale and the Rose
DR13 -3.66 dB -22.77 dB 2:25 06-Charles Gounod: Le temps des roses
DR14 -2.08 dB -22.38 dB 3:05 07-Gabriel Fauré: Les Roses d'Ispahan, Op. 39 No.4
DR13 -1.69 dB -21.67 dB 3:27 08-Richard Strauss: Das Rosenband, Op. 36 No. 1
DR13 -3.50 dB -22.54 dB 2:03 09-Richard Strauss: Mädchenblumen, Op. 22 - 1. Kornblumen
DR13 -0.34 dB -18.89 dB 1:18 10-Richard Strauss: Mädchenblumen, Op. 22 - 2. Mohnblumen
DR13 -0.35 dB -21.29 dB 3:33 11-Richard Strauss: Mädchenblumen, Op. 22 - 3. Epheu
DR13 -2.20 dB -21.33 dB 3:55 12-Richard Strauss: Mädchenblumen, Op. 22 - 4. Wasserrose
DR15 -1.57 dB -23.77 dB 2:18 13-Franz Schubert: Die Blumensprache, Op. 173 No. 5
DR13 -4.48 dB -22.35 dB 2:30 14-Franz Schubert: Im Haine, Op. 56 No. 3
DR13 -3.92 dB -24.26 dB 0:48 15-Robert Schumann: Jasminenstrauch, Op. 27 No. 4
DR14 -4.37 dB -24.53 dB 3:12 16-Robert Schumann: Die Blume der Ergebung, Op. 83 No. 2
DR14 -4.45 dB -26.02 dB 1:40 17-Robert Schumann: Schneeglöckchen, Op. 79 No. 27
DR13 -3.52 dB -26.52 dB 2:53 18-Francis Poulenc: Fleurs, FP. 101 No. 6
DR13 -2.65 dB -21.48 dB 2:03 19-Gabriel Fauré: Le Papillon et la fleur
DR10 -1.78 dB -17.91 dB 1:22 20-Gabriel Fauré: Fleur jetée, Op. 39 No. 2
DR14 -12.82 dB -33.47 dB 3:23 21-Reynaldo Hahn: Offrande
DR13 -0.37 dB -20.48 dB 5:47 22-Claude Debussy: De fleurs
DR13 -1.42 dB -21.94 dB 2:43 23-Lili Boulanger: Les lilas qui avaient fleuri
DR12 -1.27 dB -19.20 dB 5:17 24-Emmanuel Chabrier: Toutes les fleurs !
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 24
Official DR value: DR13

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 535 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================