After their much lauded recording of Winterreise, Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis turn to Schubert’s first
song-cycle, Die schöne Müllerin / The Fair Maid of the Mill, which follows a lovelorn young man on a
melancholy journey of false hope.
Two great artists at the zenith of their careers.
Mark Padmore was born in London, grew up in Canterbury and studied at King’s College, Cambridge, graduating with an honours degree in music. He has established an international career in opera, concert and recital, and his performances in Bach’s Passions have gained particular notice throughout the world. He has appeared at many of the world’s leading opera houses (including the English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne, La
Monnaie, and Théâtre du Châtelet) and in concert with the Berlin, Vienna and New York Philharmonic orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the London Symphony and London Philharmonic orchestra, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
Mark Padmore is increasingly well-known as a recitalist and has been heard in many of the world’s best-loved halls, working regularly with pianists Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles, Andrew West, Imogen Cooper, Till Fellner, and Paul Lewis, his partner in the eagerly anticipated Schubert triptych, now being recorded by harmonia mundi. Mark Padmore’s work in the recording studio has also attracted considerable acclaim, earning him a BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award for his Handel arias disc: As steals the morn... and a Gramophone Magazine ‘Disc of the Month’ for his first Schubert recording with Paul Lewis: Die Winterreise in November 2009.
Paul Lewis is recognised internationally as one of today’s most distinctive and poetic pianists. He has a particularly strong relationship with London’s Wigmore Hall, where he has appeared on more than 40 occasions and where he launched a much-lauded Schubert cycle with tenor Mark Padmore. Between 2005 and 2007, Paul Lewis performed all the Beethoven piano sonatas on tour in the USA and Europe, in tandem with his complete recording of the cycle for hm. This project earned him two Gramophone Awards in 2008: Recording of the Year and Best Instrumental
Recording. He now moves on to the Beethoven piano concertos, all of which he is performing at the BBC Proms this summer: the first time the complete cycle will be performed there by the same soloist in a single season.
His harmonia mundi recording of all five concertos is released on 12th July.
“Padmore characteristically plundered each poem for every last ounce of emotion from virile
ecstasy to blank sorrow. In the final Des Baches Wiegenlied (The Brook’s Lullaby), singer and pianist perfectly expressed the music’s caressing invitation to sink into the watery sleep of oblivion. It was breathtaking. Schubert couldn’t be better served.” Evening Standard, 20/5/2008