Beautifully curated: Carolyn Sampson & Joseph Middleton explore all manner of obsession in Reason in Madness at Oxford International Song Festival

Reason in Madness: Gösta Nystroem, Alma Schindler-Mahler, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Strauss, Wolf, Duparc, Koechlin, Debussy, Saint-Saens, Chausson, Poulenc; Klara Solén, George Herbert, Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton; Oxford International Song Festival at Holywell Music Room
Reviewed 11 October 2026

All manner of obsession: Sampson and Middleton moved between Gretchen, Ophelia, Mignon and Bilitis with Strauss’s Ophelia lieder, Wolf’s Mignon and Debussy’s Bilitis being particularly highlights in a beautifully curated whole

The Sunday of the first weekend of the Oxford International Song Festival (11 October 2026) was devoted to thematic recitals, albeit three vastly contrasting themes. In the morning we had Immortal Mozart [see my review], exploring Schubert’s admiration for Mozart, then in the afternoon we had Britten in Love [see my review], with an interweaving of Britten’s music and emotional life, and finally in the evening it was Reason in Madness.

At Holywell Music Room, soprano Carolyn Sampson and pianist Joseph Middleton presented a programme exploring obsession and just how far feelings can go. We heard songs by Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Strauss, Wolf, Duparc, Koechlin, Debussy, Saint-Saens, Chausson and Poulenc, whilst the characters invoked included Gretchen, Ophelia, Mignon, Bilitis and Cocteau’s La dame de Montecarlo.

Reason in Madness – Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton – Oxford International Song Festival at Holywell Music Room [Photo: Carolyn Sampson’s Instagram]

The evening was begun by two of the Festival’s Emerging Artists, mezzo-soprano Klara Solén and pianist George Herbert performing songs by Gösta Nystroem and Alma Schindler-Mahler.

Gösta Nystroem (1890-1966) studied in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Paris where his teachers included Vincent d’Indy and where he stayed several years. Solén and Herbert performed Nystroem’s 1948 song cycle, På reveln (At the reef) setting texts by three different Swedish poets. The title song, ‘På reveln’ had evocative piano writing supporting a more direct vocal line, creating a distinct atmosphere. ‘Otrolig dag’ (Special day) was deceptively simple with its delicate piano writing and lyrically engaging vocal writing. ‘Havet sjunger’ (Singing of the sea) moved from melancholy atmosphere to rich romantic drama. The three poems each conjured a moment, and Nystroem seems to have had the ability to conjure just the right atmosphere.

The two Emerging Artists finished with Alma Schindler-Mahler’s Erntelied (Harvest Song). This began conventionally enough, with an engaging melody of flowing piano but the harmonies became more complex and the drama intensified until we reach a richly late-romantic feel.

Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton began with Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade. Interior and controlled at first, Sampson suggested that the character’s mind was elsewhere and after the climax on ‘sein Kuss’ she became distinctly anxious and disturbed. The programme continued with a group of songs that expanded on the girl spinning theme. Both Brahms and Schumann set the same poem by Heyse, albeit with slight differences. Brahms’s Mädchen proved to be a sad little song, charmingly folk-like with a more developed piano part. Schumann’s Die Spinnerin had a similarly folk-like character with some fascinating evocations of spinning in the piano.

Schumann’s Herzelied (Heartache) introduced the character of Ophelia; a touching, rather haunted song with a fabulous piano part full of overlapping, drooping phrases. Brahms’s Ophelia-Lieder were written for a play, for an actress to sing, though there are piano parts which largely double the voice. They are simple and direct, all charmingly folk-like. Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton performed all five, creating atmosphere and not trying to make the music more than it is.

By contrast, Richard Strauss’s Drei Lieder der Ophelia are complex entities in their own right, setting German texts by the poet Karl Joseph Simrock who translated the play. ‘Wie erkenn’ ich mein Treulieb’ (How shall I know my true love) had a complex, dazzling piano part that created a strange atmophere for Sampson’s rendering of the angular vocal line moving from expressively expressionist to almost naive. ‘Guten Morgen, ‘s ist Sankt Valentinstag’ (Good morning, it’s St Valentine’s Day) was fast and vivid, the jagged vocal line combining with the dazzling piano to really disturb. Then in ‘Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloss’ (They carried him naked on the bier), Middleton’s eerie, restless piano and Sampson’s bleached voice combined to create real atmosphere. In all three songs, Sampson’s performance captured Ophelia’s mania and the way her mind changed in an instant.

We then moved on to the tragic figure of Mignon from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, a seminal work of German romanticism with Mignon proving to be a figure of great fascination despite (because of?) being the product of brother/sister incest. The first half of the programme concluded with Hugo Wolf’s Mignon Lieder. ‘Mignon I – Heiss’ mich nicht reden’ (Bid me not speak) was bleak and rather moving with a piano part that began and ended in uncompromising fashion and was always complex. In ‘Mignon II – Nur were die Sehnsucht kennt’ (Only those who know longing), Middleton brought out the urgency in the piano writing whilst Sampson’s performance was intense and bleak, conveying her anxiety. ‘Mignon III – ‘So lasst mich scheinen’ (Let me appear an angel) was simply haunting. Finally ‘Kennst du das Land’ (Do you know the land) where the haunting narrative was intensified by the piano. When Sampson’s voice rose to real intensity, Middleton’s piano suggested that she was still in a semi deluded state. And when the accompaniment became overwhelming, thig Mignon was in her own world.

After the interval we moved to France, but remained with Mignon, this time Duparc’s Romance de Mignon, a French version of ‘Kennst du das Land’. This song had a very different atmosphere to Wolf’s setting with Duparc using the harmony to heighten the atmosphere, and the throbbing piano accompaniment had a distinctly disurbing element to it. Both climaxes rose to richly romantic heights, and there was a substantial postlude.

The Belgian poet Pierre-Félix Louÿs published his 143 erotic prose poems, Les Chansons de Bilitis in 1894, claiming at first that they were translations from Ancient Greek writings by a courtesan called Bilitis! Debussy set three in his Chansons de Bilitis whilst Charles Koechlin set five in his Chansons de Bilitis. We heard Debussy’s three bookended by the first and last of Koechlin’s settings.

First Koechlin’s ‘Hymne à Astarté’, an astonishing piece that combined a big piano part with a dramatic recitation that was almost an invocation, leading to a final line that was positively unrestrained!

Then came Debussy. ‘La Flûte de Pan’ showed just how much these songs suite Sampson. Debussy’s Mélisande (a role that Sampson sang with Scottish Opera in 2017) never feels far away. In this first ssong she was quiet and interior, the line supple and flexible. Middleton’s on-point classical style accompaniment contributed to the atmosphere. ‘La Chevelure’ is real Mélisande territory. Middleton’s piano throbbed with subtle passion. Sampson brought real intensity to the music yet never quite became unbridled. Finally ‘Le Tombeau des naïades’, again fluid and supple, apparently effortless and a climax that seemed to say something else entirely different from the words!

The final Koechlin was ‘Épitaphe de Bilitis’, a rather quiet, interior piece that was more formal than Debussy’s writing and with distinctly neo-classical hints.

Saint-Saens’ La mort d’Ophélie took us to a French version of Gertrude’s famous speech. A spinning piano line and urgent vocals combined to created a strong narrative, and with the word ‘Chantant’ the music became melodically engaging. Chausson’s Chanson d’Ophélie took us to a French version of one of Ophelia’s speeches, her rendered as simple, fluid dialogue with dark colours in the piano.

Finally a song not directly related but one where the atmosphere conjured was similar. Duparc’s Au pays ou se fait la guerre, a small masterpiece rendered exquisitely here as Sampson’s supple yet direct vocal line moved from discreet narrative to powerful climax.

Poulenc’s La Dame de Monte-Carlo sets a text by Jean Cocteau (written as a spoken dramatic monologue). Poulenc’s setting was originally written for the soprano Denise Duval and premiered in the orchestra version in 1961. Duval sang the lead in Poulenc’s two operas, and he wrote La voix humaine (Cocteau, 1958), the song cycle La courte paille (1960), and La dame de Monte-Carlo, for her.

In his Journal de mes Mélodies, Poulenc wrote, “This monologue delighted me because it brought back to me the years 1923–1925 when I lived, together with Auric, in Monte Carlo, in the imperial shadow of Diaghilev [the composer was there preparing the première of his ballet Les biches]. I have often enough seen at close quarters those old wrecks of women, light-fingered ladies of the gaming tables. In all honesty I must admit that Auric and I even came across them at the pawnshop where our imprudent youth led us once or twice.“

It was a rather slow-build monologue, very much bitter with just a sprinkling of sweet. I very much enjoyed the way Sampson spat out many of the words and even snarled at times. This was a bitter old woman indeed, but one focused on one thing.

There was an encore, Schubert’s Abschied der Erde which is not a song but a melodrama!