Artists

Christiane Karg soprano
Joseph Middleton piano

Christiane Karg is one of the supreme Lied artists of her generation, celebrated internationally for the intelligence, warmth and extraordinary expressive range she brings to song. A natural storyteller with an exceptional ear for poetry and text, she has made the recital platform a central part of her artistic life, appearing at the world’s great concert halls and festivals with many of the leading pianists of our time.

For Leeds Song, she reunites with Joseph Middleton for a programme exploring the enduring fascination of Italy for the great German composers. From the elegance of Mozart and Beethoven’s Italian songs to Schubert’s Canzoni, the dramatic world of Didone abbandonata and Haydn’s Ariadne auf Naxos, this is music steeped in sunlight, longing, passion and theatricality — an irresistible celebration of the Italian voice as imagined through the German Lied tradition.

Programme

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Der Zauberer
An Chloë
Das Veilchen
Oiseaux, si tous les ans
Dans un bois solitaire
Ridente la calma

Ludwig van Beethoven
Selection of Italian songs

Franz Schubert
Vier Canzonen
Didone abbandonata, ‘Vedi, quanto adoro’

Joseph Haydn
Ariadne auf Naxos