Czech Songs
Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959)
Nipponari, H68 (1912)
Songs on One Page, H294 (1943), orch. 1997 Jiří Teml (b.1935)
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Evening Songs, Op.3 (1880), three songs orch. Jiří Gemrot (b.1957)
Songs, Op.2, Nos 2 and 6 B123, B124 (1881-82)
Hans Krása (1899-1944)
Four Orchestral Songs, Op.1 (1920)
Gideon Klein (1919-1945)
Lullaby (1943), orch. Jiří Gemrot
Magdalena Kožená (mezzo-soprano)
Czech Philharmonic/Sir Simon Rattle
rec. 2022/2023, Dvořák Hall, Rudolfinum, Prague, Czechia
Texts in Czech with English translation
Reviewed as MP3 download
Pentatone PTC5187077 [61]
Magdalena Kožená has had a long and distinguished career, and her discography is comprehensive, extending more than 25 years back in time – in spite of her still relative youth. Born in Brno in the Czech Republic she has of course a special feeling for the music of her homeland, and one of her earliest solo albums, issued I March 2000, was a recital of Czech love songs by Dvořák, Martinů and Janáček, including Martinů’s seven Songs on One Page. They are included in the present programme – but with orchestral accompaniments, whereas on the March 2000 issue she sang them with the original piano accompaniments. Thus, they are not directly comparable, but it is fascinating to hear how little the voice has aged in these 23 years. It has naturally matured but not deteriorated – and that is a tribute to her early training and discriminating choice of repertoire – possibly, also, good genes.
The varied programme confirms that Dvořák and Martinů should be better known than they are in the West for their art songs. The problem is that they set poems in Czech, a language that few music lovers understand in the German- and French-speaking countries. We have the same problems with Scandinavian songs. Dvořák’s songs are better-known, since some of them have become known in German translations. The songs of Martinů are overshadowed by his enormous production of largescale works: 15 operas, 14 ballets, six symphonies, around forty concertos for various instruments, and a multitude of chamber music works, including seven numbered string quartets. I had forgotten that he was a very gifted melodist. Returning now to the Songs on One Page after more than twenty years was a pleasant surprise. They were written in 1943 in the US, where he had settled two years earlier, after having spent almost two decades in Paris. They are mostly brief songs, based on Moravian folk poetry. Some of them are quick and lively with a humorous touch, others are charming love songs, like Rosemary (track 14), and The Virgin Mary’s Dream is a beautiful prayer. The orchestral accompaniments were written by Jiří Teml as recently as 1977.
The much earlier cycle Nipponari was composed in 1912 by a 22-year-old Martinů, inspired by the passion for everything Japanese that suffused some cultural European circles, mainly in France, at the beginning of the previous century. The texts are surprisingly lugubrious, considering the tender age of the composer, but they are to a certain extent mitigated by the beautiful melodies, Japanese influenced, and the magical instrumentation for chamber orchestra. This is Martinů’s original version, and time and again one marvels at the ravishing combination of sounds that the vocal line is embedded in. With the pure tones of Magdalena Kožená’s beautiful mezzo-soprano they create a sound world that is unique. I had to go back to the songs at once, having finished my first listening session, and the spell was still there. I do urge readers to give The Blue Hour (track 1) a listen, and I’m sure they will be as seduced as I was.
Martinů was very influenced by the folk music of his Slovak lineage – and so was also Antonin Dvořák. Even the works he wrote during his sojourn in the US in the 1890s are imbued with reminiscences of his homeland. On that early disc mentioned above, Magdalena Kožená sang his Písně milostné, Op. 83 (Love Songs) – published in 1889 and regarded as some of his best. But the disc also included Four Songs Op. 2, which, in spite of the low opus number, are roughly contemporaneous. Two of those are included here (tracks 20 and 21), together with five of the twelve Evening Songs, probably composed in 1876. Dvořák’s songs are simple in structure, like folksongs, but the melodies go directly to the listener’s heart – at least, they do to mine. Kožená’s golden tones and her feeling make them glow and feel like balm for the soul.
The remaining songs by Hans Krása and Gideon Klein, are quite different. Both composers were victims of the Nazi’s Holocaust during WW2. Krása, who became a central figure in the music life of Prague during the interwar years, studied with Zemlinsky and Roussel, and debuted with the Four Orchestral Songs, recorded here, in 1920. They are settings of nonsense verses by Christian Morgenstern. They are rather pungent and ironic and the last one depicts a future world without hope. Even more depressive is Gideon Klein’s Lullaby, written during his imprisonment in Terezin, and miraculously his manuscripts survived. The Hebrew text tells about the mother who comforts her little son. The first verse says:
Lie down, my son, lie down restfully
do no cry bitterly
your mother is sitting next to you
guarding against any evil.
But she knows that there is no longer any hope. It is a cruel but very gripping song, and Magdalena Kožená sings it with great warmth.
With excellent accompaniment by the Czech Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle this is a valuable sequel to the recent disc with folk songs (review ~ review).
Göran Forsling
Previous review: Jonathan Woolf (July 2024)
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