The World Feels Dusty Sarah Connolly & Joseph Middleton

• Ernest Chausson (1855 - 1899): Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19:
• 1 Chausson: Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19: Ia. La Fleur des eaux - L’air est plein d’une odeur exquise de lilas 04:22
• 2 Chausson: Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19: Ib. La Fleur des eaux - Et mon coeur s’est levé par ce matin d’été 02:21
• 3 Chausson: Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19: Ic. La Fleur des eaux - Quel son lamentable et sauvage 03:23
• 4 Chausson: Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19: II. Interlude 02:10
• 5 Chausson: Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19 IIIa. La Mort de l’amour - Bientôt l’île bleue et joyeuse 02:07
• 6 Chausson: Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19: IIIb. La Mort de l’amour - Le vent roulait les feuilles mortes 02:51
• 7 Chausson: Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19: IIIc. La Mort de l’amour - Comme des fronts de morts nos fronts avaient pâli 02:29
• 8 Chausson: Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19 IIId.. La Mort de l’amour - Le temps des lilas et le temps des roses 04:14
• Samuel Barber (1910 - 1981): Three Songs, Op. 10:
• 9 Barber: Three Songs, Op. 10: No. 1, Rain has fallen 02:45
• 10 Barber: Three Songs, Op. 10: No. 2, Sleep now 02:46
• 11 Barber: Three Songs, Op. 10: No. 3, I hear an army 02:30
• Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918): Trois Chansons de Bilitis:
• 12 Debussy: Trois Chansons de Bilitis: I. La Flûte de Pan 02:49
• 13 Debussy: Trois Chansons de Bilitis: II. La Chevelure 03:22
• 14 Debussy: Trois Chansons de Bilitis: III. Le Tombeau des Naïades 02:55
• Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990): Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson:
• 15 Copland: Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson: No. 4, The world feels dusty 01:58
• 16 Copland: Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson: No. 10, I’ve heard an organ talk sometimes 02:02
• Errollyn Wallen (b. 1958): Night Thoughts:
• 17 Wallen: Night Thoughts: No. 1, Sleep 03:26
• 18 Wallen: Night Thoughts: No. 2, Bright Lights 03:23
• 19 Wallen: Night Thoughts: No. 3, There’s a certain Slant of light 04:17
• 20 Wallen: Night Thoughts: No. 4, Night Thoughts 01:37
• Total Runtime 57:47

Info for The World Feels Dusty

Dame Sarah Connolly and Joseph Middleton present a richly rewarding programme of art songs from a variety of composers. The recital opens with Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer, which took almost a decade to compose and shows Wagner’s influence on the younger composer. Composed in 1935 on a study trip to Rome, Barber’s Three Songs set poems by James Joyce and portray three love affairs. Debussy’s Trois Chansons de Bilitis set the erotic poems of Pierre Louÿs, which were all the rage in Paris at the turn of the century. Aaron Copland completed his Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson in 1950, but declared that they should not be seen as a set but as twelve individual works. Connolly here includes ‘I’ve heard an organ talk sometimes’ and ‘The world feels dusty’, the latter giving the album its title. The programme concludes with the première recording of Errollyn Wallen’s Night Thoughts: a cycle of four songs commissioned by Leeds Lieder, and first performed by Dame Sarah and Joseph, the cycle’s dedicatees. Setting two of her own poems alongside one by Emily Dickinson and lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the cycle took its inspiration from Howard Hodgkin’s painting Night Thoughts.

"It’s all brilliantly sung and played of course so it’s really just about whether you fancy the choice of songs." (operaramblings.blog)

Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano
Joseph Middleton, piano

Sarah Connolly
Born in County Durham, Sarah Connolly studied piano and singing at the Royal College of Music, of which she is now a Fellow. She was made a DBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours, having previously been made a CBE in the 2010 New Year’s Honours. In 2011 she was honoured by the Incorporated Society of Musicians and presented with the Distinguished Musician Award. She is the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s 2012 Singer Award.

Highlights in her 2017/18 season include her debut at the Wiener Staatsoper in a new production of Ariodante, the title role in Giulio Cesare at the Glyndebourne Festival and Brangäne Tristan und Isolde for the Gran Teatro del Liceu.

Past highlights have included Fricka (Covent Garden & Bayreuther Festspiele) Brangäne Tristan und Isolde (Covent Garden & Festspielhaus Baden-Baden); Komponist Ariadne auf Naxos and Clairon Capriccio (Metropolitan Opera); the title role in Giulio Cesare, Brangäne and Gertrude in the world premiere of Brett Dean's Hamlet (Glyndebourne Festival); the title role in Ariodante and Sesto La clemenza di Tito (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence); Purcell’s Dido (Teatro alla Scala & Covent Garden); Jocaste in Enescu's Œdipe (Covent Garden); Gluck’s Orfeo and the title role in The Rape of Lucretia (Bayerische Staatsoper); Phèdre Hippolyte et Aricie (Opéra national de Paris) and the title role in Agrippina and Nerone L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Gran Teatro del Liceu).

She has also sung the title role in Maria Stuarda and Roméo I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Opera North); Komponist (Welsh National Opera) and Octavian Der Rosenkavalier (Scottish Opera). A favorite at the English National Opera, her many roles for the company have included Geschwitz Lulu; Octavian; the title roles in Charpentier’s Medée and Handel's Agrippina, Xerxes, Ariodante and Ruggiero Alcina; the title role in The Rape of Lucretia; Didon Les Troyens; Roméo, Susie The Silver Tassie and Sesto - for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera.

The future sees her return to the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, the Opéra national de Paris and make her debut at the Teatro Réal in Madrid.

Her many concert engagements include appearances at the Lucerne, Salzburg, Tanglewood and Three Choirs Festivals and at the BBC Proms where, in 2009, she was a memorable guest soloist at The Last Night. Other notable engagements have included The Dream of Gerontius (Boston Symphony Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis & Mozarteumorchester Salzburg/Bolton); Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 at the BBC Proms (LSO/Haitink); A Child of our Time and Brangäne (Berliner Philharmoniker/Rattle); Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (Leipzig Gewandhausorchester/Chailly, Boston Symphony Orchestra/von Dohnanyi & Philadelphia Orchestra/Nézet-Séguin); Das Lied von der Erde (Concertgebouworkest/Harding, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra/Nézet-Séguin & LPO/Jurowski); Des Knaben Wunderhorn (L’Orchestre des Champs-Elysées/Herreweghe) and La mort de Cléopâtre (Hallé/Elder, CBSO/Gardner & BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis).

She has appeared in recital in London, New York, Boston, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Atlanta, Stuttgart; at the Incontri in Terra di Siena La Foce and the Schubertiada Vilabertran and at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Oxford Lieder Festivals.

Committed to promoting new music, her world premiere performances include two re-discovered songs by Benjamin Britten (BBC Proms 2018) with Joseph Middleton; Sir john Tavener's Gnosis, (BBC Proms); songs by Mark Anthony Turnage, Sally Beamish and Dame Judith Weir, Jonathan Harvey.

Joseph Middleton
specializes in the art of song accompaniment and chamber music and has been internationally acclaimed as one of the finest musicians in this field. Described in Opera Magazine as ‘the rightful heir to legendary accompanist Gerald Moore’, by BBC Music Magazine as ‘one of the brightest stars in the world of song and Lieder’, he has also been labelled ‘the cream of the new generation’ by The Times.

He is a passionate advocate for the transformative power of music, and as well as performing and recording world-wide, he is a festival director and sought-after pedagogue. Named ‘the absolute King of programming’ by Gramophone Magazine, Joseph frequently devises series for BBC Radio 3, Wigmore Hall and the University of Cambridge. He is Musician in Residence at, and Bye-Fellow of Pembroke College Cambridge where he curates a series of song recitals and directs the University’s Lieder Scheme. He is a Fellow of his alma mater, the Royal Academy of Music, where he is also a Professor of Ensemble Piano. For the past 11 years he has also been Director of Leeds Song, a Festival recently praised in the Guardian for its ‘World-class’ programming and lauded in The Times for bringing: ‘musical riches to Yorkshire through star performers, engaging new commissions and bold educational projects….a Northern powerhouse of song.’

Joseph is a frequent guest at major music centres including London’s Wigmore Hall, Royal Opera House, Barbican and Royal Festival Hall, New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Park Avenue Armory, Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus and Musikverein Vienna, Zürich Tonhalle, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Berlin BoulezSaal and Philharmonic, Kölner Philharmonie, Teatro de la Zarzuela Madrid, Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Lille and Gothenburg Opera Houses, Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Musée d’Orsay Paris, Oji Hall Tokyo and Festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Aldeburgh, Barcelona, Schloss Elmau, Edinburgh, Heidelberger Frühling, Munich, Ravinia, San Francisco, Schubertiade Hohenems and Schwarzenberg, deSingel, Soeul, Stuttgart, Toronto and Vancouver. He made his BBC Proms debut in 2016 alongside Iestyn Davies and Carolyn Sampson and returned in 2018 alongside Dame Sarah Connolly where they premiered recently discovered songs by Benjamin Britten.

Joseph enjoys recitals with internationally established singers including Sir Thomas Allen, Louise Alder, Mary Bevan, Ian Bostridge, Allan Clayton, Dame Sarah Connolly, Marianne Crebassa, Iestyn Davies, Fatma Said, Veronique Gens, Huw Montague Rendall, Elsa Dreisig, Sir Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirchschlager, Katharina Konradi, Dame Felicity Lott, Christopher Maltman, John Mark Ainsley, Ann Murray DBE, James Newby, Mark Padmore, Mauro Peter, Miah Persson, Sophie Rennert, Dorothea Röschmann, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Kate Royal, Carolyn Sampson, Nicky Spence and Roderick Williams.

He has a special relationship with BBC Radio 3, frequently curating his own series and performing alongside the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists. His critically acclaimed and fast-growing discography has seen him awarded a Diapason D’or, Edison Award and Priz Caecilia as well as receiving numerous nominations for ECHO, Opus-Klassik, Gramophone, BBC Music Magazines and International Classical Music Awards. His interest in the furthering of the song repertoire has led him to commission and give the premieres of major new works by important voices including: Thomas Adès, Nico Muhly, Hannah Kendall, Cheryl Frances Hoad, Daniel Kidane, Mark Anthony Turnage, Errollyn Wallen, Helen Grime, Huw Watkins, Brian Elias, Judith Bingham, Ed Nesbitt, Deborah Pritchard, Kate Whitley, Robin Holloway, Michael Berkeley and Sally Beamish among others.

Joseph Middleton was the first, and to date only accompanist to win the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award, the UKs most prestigious award to be bestowed upon a musician.

Booklet for The World Feels Dusty