For the first four years of their marriage, Robert and Clara Schumannkept a joint diary, a project which Robert described as ‘a record of our wishes and our hopes, and the means whereby we may convey to one another any requests we may have to make, for which words may not suffice...’ In the imaginative recital Album für die Frau, Carolyn Sampsonand Joseph Middletoncombine songs by both composers into something similar –the depiction of a relationship seen through the eyes of both parties.Using the eight songs from Robert’s song cycle Frauenliebeund –leben to poems by Adalbert von Chamissoas the framework, they add songs as well as some piano solos in order to create a fuller and more complex picture.