Today sees the release of Helen Charlston's second album with BIS Records - 'A Poet's Love' with pianist and long-time collaborator Sholto Kynoch.
Full of blurred boundaries between reality and imagination in life and love, Heinrich Heine’s poetry is at the heart of this programme. His vivid writing was the creative catalyst for so many composers across the centuries, most famously Robert Schumann in his 1840 song cycle Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love) which forms the centre of this programme. Alongside this cycle, we hear Héloïse Werner Knight’s Dream written especially for the artists which cherishes Heine’s exquisite words, playing with the words and the listener at every opportunity.
"The more I live with Dichterliebe the more I am reminded of the privilege of my role in the world as a storyteller. For a while, I traverse the highs and lows of longing, feel the flash of love and the unimaginable wounds of loss. For its protagonist, the wild declaration “I loved and was loved” matters so much more than any tidy resolution. I have loved this music for a long time. I can only hope, in some small way, it returns the favour." - Helen Charlston
Watch the music video Schumann's Im wunderschönen Monat Mai for here.
The disc has already received outstanding reviews:
“A singer so compelling she turns me to jelly…What’s the first delight in Helen Charlston’s new album? Undoubtedly the British mezzo-soprano’s compelling voice, which moves about with such ease, floats the lines so feelingly and shares the words with a sensitivity that can turn your insides to jelly. That happened to me with the way she sang the word träumend (dreaming) in the very first song… Most performances [of Dichterliebe] over the years have cast the voice accordingly [as male] but Charlston, shows that with singing of this emotional depth, all that matters isn’t gender: its’s the broken heart. This is a marvelous recital.”
Geoff Brown, The Times*****
“Helen Charlston is a strikingly original talent on stage, so it should come as no surprise that her latest recital on disc pushes into unexpected territory… Charlston relishes Werner’s haunting, folk-inflected vocal lines, her wine-dark mezzo-soprano savouring every drop… Im wunderschönen Monat Mai gets things off to a trancelike start, voice and piano stretching certain phrases to the limit. It’s a mood they return to frequently, surprising the listener with the final elongated measure of Die Rose, die Lilie and delivering an uncommonly elastic Ich grolle nicht. Charlston’s honeyed middle register draws the ear throughout…”
Clive Paget, The Guardian****
“Dichterliebe is the destination, a culminating performance as sensitive to its fragile edges as its more optimistic musings. Charlston maintains liquid sustenance throughout, Kynoch ever-attentive to her beguiling nuances.”
Ken Walton, The Scotsman****
Helen was the 2023 Gramophone Award winner for Best Concept Album and also collected the Vocal award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards for her second Delphian album: Battle Cry: the only recording that year to win at both ceremonies.
Her recent and upcoming highlights include her debut at Dutch National Opera in the world premiere of Michel van der Aa’s Theory of Flames in the role of Marianne, Bach St Matthew Passion with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra under Laurence Cummings, and her return to the BBC Proms this summer.
