Carolyn Sampson's new recording from BIS, 'Reason in Madness', focuses on some of literature's heroines whose mental state has been unbalanced by sadness or tragedy. Characters like Ophelia, Bilitis and Gretchen run like a thread through the programme and draw some glorious, and unsettling, music from composers including Brahms, Schumann, Richard Strauss, Chausson, Saint-Saëns and Poulenc.

Carolyn Sampson talks to Gramophone's Editor-in-Chief, James Jolly, about how she and the pianist Joseph Middleton assembled the programme and how she paid tribute to Sir John Everett Millais' famous painting 'Ophelia' for the cover of the CD.

You can listen to the Podcast above. To hear other Gramophone podcasts, or to subscribe for free to new editions, search for 'Gramophone Magazine' in your Podcast application of choice, or visit Gramophone's page at iTunes.

Photo: Marco Borggreve