Fatma Said and Joseph Middleton

Soprano Fatma Said and pianist Joseph Middleton give a recital that contrasts songs on nocturnal theme by Mozart, Schubert and Robert Schumann with sunnier Spanish repertoire.

While Mozart’s operatic arias are frequently performed, his songs are more rarely heard. This recital opens with three fine examples, including one to a text by Gabriella Baumberg. A handful of Schubert’s most famous songs culminates in Ständchen to words from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, and after some of Schumann’s shapeliest Lieder we head for Spain, heralded by Falla’s folk-inspired Canciones populares. The recital ends with hauntingly beautiful music by Lebanese polymath Najib Hankash in a song that has been championed by Fatma Said.

Fatma Said has been described by The New York Times as ‘captivating’ with ‘an especially beautiful operatic voice’, while Joseph Middleton is one of today’s finest song accompanists, hailed by BBC Music Magazine as ‘a born collaborator… one of the brightest stars in the world of song and Lieder’.