Sparks from Ashes
Song cycles by Dvořák, Bartók, Kaprálová and Křička
Nicky Spence (tenor)
Dylan Perez (piano)
rec. 11-13 November 2024, Potton Hall, Dunwich, Suffolk
Texts and translations provided
Chandos CHAN20338 [86] 

In my review of Edward Gardner’s recent Britten disc for the LPO label, I mentioned that this record of Czech and Slovak art songs from Nicky Spence and his husband Dylan Perez was on its way. It is a very full record of most interesting songs, most of which will be new discoveries for many of us. Peter Newbie and Alexander James of Chandos have captured the recital in a natural, warm and cosy acoustic. The sound is immaculately balanced with space around the singer into which his blooming tenor can flower. The piano is captured perfectly, too, and Perez accompanies throughout with real style and character.

Nicky Spence has established his Fach well and truly with the Czech repertory. As a young artist with ENO, he had the opportunity to sing it quite a bit. I think I first saw him on stage in a Czech work in Leeds for Opera North when he sang a superb Manolios in The Greek Passion. He has moved through roles like Števa in Jenůfa (which is now enshrined on disc in the Rattle version (review)), Tichon (Káťa Kabanová) and Big Prisoner (From the House of the Dead). Early in 2025 he sang Laca (I thought he was very fine) in Jenůfa and just last Summer he was Boris in the Glyndebourne Káťa. The Czechs (or should I say Moravians) rate him highly too. He has been awarded an important medal and recently took on the title role in The Excursions of Mr. Brouček in Brno – Janáček HQ, if you will!

His new record is anchored by the substantial 38-minute song-cycle Cypresses of Dvořák. This is an eighteen-song collection written in the summer of 1865 when the composer was still only twenty-three years old. I learn from Jan Smaczny’s superb liner notes that he wrote the cycle at the rate of a song per day between 10 and 27 July. Later, Dvořák borrowed from the set and made arrangements of its music for other combinations of instrumentalists. The texts are what you might expect from a young man consumed in the turmoil of a complicated and, it seems, often one-sided, love. It is very intense and angst-ridden, and Spence gives a dramatic heartfelt performance accompanied by an always tuned-in Perez. There seems to be far more rejection, despair and introspection than bliss, elation and happiness in this young fellow’s life but Spence shades everything with care and there are much variety and nuance in his timbre. He captures the yearning quality in some of the songs particularly well. In one or two places at the top of his range and at forte he is challenged by the tessitura of the writing; he does lunge a couple of times at notes, too, but his tenor is bright and clear in the most part and he has a gorgeous mezza voce which you can hear in the very first song of the cycle: “You ardent songs, sing”.

Bartók’s Village Scenes are next. These five songs are usually sung by soprano and were collected from folk in the Zólyom region (now in Slovakia). Bartók’s arrangements for voice and piano date from 1924. Spence and Perez enter into these vignettes with relish. Their “Hijijijiji!” and “Eijajajaja!” at the rather raucous Wedding may surprise you. As usual, Bartók artfully maintains the raw intensity of the original folksongs in his clever adaptions of the material. Spence is expressive and captivating in the haunting Lullaby, generous of tone and amplitude in Lad’s Dance (a fraction too much, perhaps?). Perez shines in that last boisterous number, too.

Sparks from Ashes by Kaprálová is next. The whole program devised here is named for this work. The four art songs date from 1933 when the Prague based composer was only eighteen years old. These really are little gems and beautifully rendered. The sound world they inhabit seems to me to be   twenty years earlier than the 1930s. Spence’s tenor is clarion in the grandeur of “Oh, stay a while longer, my beloved”. Elsewhere he sculpts some lovely phrasing. I feel these songs represent the very best of the recital. I can well see why Spence and Perez adore them so and named the record after them. There is one other song included on the album by Kaprálová. “Waving Farewell” is the only stand-alone title in the line-up and the record actually starts with it. In this superb song, Vítězslava bids her farewell to Prague as she moves to Paris to study with Martinů. Smaczny talks about it having the sweetest regret whilst maintaining the heights of eloquence. The piano writing almost symphonic in its contribution. Martinů had to flee Paris on news of the German advance in June 1940. He was hidden for a time by Charles Munch and eventually after months of dodging the authorities, he left Europe for America. Kaprálová herself was tragically felled in that terrible June of 1940 by tuberculosis.

The recital ends with some fine storytelling, something Nicky Spence enjoys very much, I think, and is very good at. The Three Fables of Jaroslav Křička could very well be animated, I imagine. Goats, a cunning vixen, cockerels, hens, a pig, a crane and a heron tell us cautionary tales painted in technicolour here by Spence and Perez. The songs are fast moving, and Spence’s excellent linguistic skills and diction really impress, just as much as his word painting prowess casts its spell on us.

This is a most impressive record, full of cheer and colour and brave in its exploration of the unfamiliar. It deserves to do well, and I look forward to the next collaboration on disc from these two.

Philip Harrison

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Contents
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915-1940)
Waving Farewell, Op. 14 (1937)
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Cypresses, B11 (1865)
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Village Scenes, BB 87a, Sz 78 (1924)
Vítězslava Kaprálová
Sparks from Ashes, Op. 5 (1933)
Jaroslav Křička (1882-1969)
Three Fables, Op. 21 (1912-1917)