<\/p>
The following is an except form BBC Music Magazine\u2019s April 2022 issue<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0interview with pianist and song accompaniment specialist Joseph Middleton, director of the Leeds Lieder festival.<\/em><\/p>\n Music \u2013 and especially song \u2013 remains at the core of Middleton\u2019s whirlwind life: \u2018The thing that I always enjoyed most was working with others. After I finished my degree, I started reading for an MPhil, but I abandoned the thought of a PhD when I realised I couldn\u2019t marry the academic work with playing. So I applied to music college on a whim, and went to the Royal Academy of Music as an accompanist.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the RAM, Middleton was steadily \u2013 even stealthily \u2013 encouraged by his teacher, the pianist Malcolm Martineau, to add working with singers to his more usual chamber music fare. In turn, when it comes to tips to pass on, he emphasises that any aspiring collaborative pianist has to build a bulletproof technique. \u2018\u2019The assumption that accompanists can get away with being less proficient is a slightly old-fashioned view peddled by people who haven\u2019t ever looked at a song and realised how it\u2019s been composed.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Effective collaboration involves practically memorising his own part while experiencing the unfolding text both with and through the singer. And recording needs different skills again, as Middleton knows from his extensive discography. \u2018In a recording studio, I\u2019m trying give the flavour of it being live, even though you record most song discs of 70 minutes over three or four days. You\u2019re not doing it repeatedly because you haven\u2019t bothered to learn it! It\u2019s more like building up a jigsaw, where you\u2019re thinking, \u201cIf I do this bit like that, will it match the next bit?\u201d<\/p>\n Fascinated by expert recording teams, he speaks admiringly of these often invisible professionals who can tinker with the minutiae of microphone placement until the right acoustic world is forged. <\/b>But this is nothing like the tightrope walk of live performance, in which, despite hours of rehearsal, there is space for spontaneity, especially when the singer shares his love of risk.<\/p>\n Leeds Lieder<\/strong><\/a> 2022 runs from 28 April to 1 May at the\u00a0Howard Assembly Room, Leeds.<\/em><\/p>\n Joseph Middleton will appear in recital with soprano Louise Alder at Wigmore Hall<\/a><\/strong> on 21 March 2022, and again at the Leads Lieder Closing Festival Recital<\/a> <\/strong>on 1 May.<\/em><\/p>\n Photo: Gerard Collett<\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Charlotte Smith Published: Friday, 18 March 2022 at 12:00 am The following is an except form BBC Music Magazine\u2019s April 2022 issue\u00a0interview with pianist and song accompaniment specialist Joseph Middleton, director of the Leeds Lieder festival. Music \u2013 and especially song \u2013 remains at the core of Middleton\u2019s whirlwind life: \u2018The thing that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":13350,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/03\/the-assumption-that-accompanists-can-get-away-with-being-less-proficient-is-false-joseph-middleton.png",2160,1376,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/03\/the-assumption-that-accompanists-can-get-away-with-being-less-proficient-is-false-joseph-middleton-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/03\/the-assumption-that-accompanists-can-get-away-with-being-less-proficient-is-false-joseph-middleton-300x191.png",300,191,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/03\/the-assumption-that-accompanists-can-get-away-with-being-less-proficient-is-false-joseph-middleton-768x489.png",768,489,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/03\/the-assumption-that-accompanists-can-get-away-with-being-less-proficient-is-false-joseph-middleton-1024x652.png",800,509,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/03\/the-assumption-that-accompanists-can-get-away-with-being-less-proficient-is-false-joseph-middleton-1536x978.png",1536,978,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/03\/the-assumption-that-accompanists-can-get-away-with-being-less-proficient-is-false-joseph-middleton-2048x1305.png",2048,1305,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Charlotte Smith Published: Friday, 18 March 2022 at 12:00 am The following is an except form BBC Music Magazine\u2019s April 2022 issue\u00a0interview with pianist and song accompaniment specialist Joseph Middleton, director of the Leeds Lieder festival. Music \u2013 and especially song \u2013 remains at the core of Middleton\u2019s whirlwind life: \u2018The thing that I…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/13349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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