Magdalena
Kožená’s star is definitely in the
ascendant. The buzz of anticipation in the
Wigmore foyer (not to mention the huge queue
for returns) indicated an artist of stature
was in town.
Kožená’s
programme was wide-ranging, and was perhaps
designed to show off her linguistic abilities
as well as her musical ones: English (Haydn),
French (Britten), Czech (Schulhoff) and German
(Wolf) were all present, although just how
correct they were is a matter for debate.
An interesting conceit, though, to have English
and French set by ‘foreigners’ – perhaps how
Kožená herself felt, handling these
texts?
Three
of Haydn’s English Songs started things off.
The mermaid’s song (1794) had a clear element
of seduction, with Kožená’s creamy
low register emerging as most appealing. Martineau’s
accompaniment was rich of tone yet managed
to remain stylish. If Kožená was on
the bleaty side in the final song (perhaps
ironically entitled, O tuneful voice),
she and her accompanist revealed unexpected
depths in The spirit’s song. Desolate
octaves in the piano and a generally portentous
feeling made this a memorable experience.
Moving
from an Austrian setting English to an Englishman
setting French, Kožená presented four
songs from Britten’s ‘Folksong Arrangements,
Volume 2, France’. The easy simplicity of
La belle est au jardin d’amou was a
success from both protagonists, while Martineau
projected the entirely characteristic piano
part of the second well. But it was the third,
Il est quelqu’un sur la terre that
provided the first true highlight of the recital.
Evidently settled, the two performers became
the hushed epitome of peace. The final Quand
j’étais chez mon pčre clearly revealed
Britten’s debt to Mahler while also providing
the first evidence of Kožená truly
letting go.
Eschewing
the more obvious Dvořák or Martinů,
the Czech part of the recital came from the
pen of Ervin Schulhoff (1894-1942), his Folk
Songs and Dances from the Tesín Region
dating from 1936. Taking material from the
North West of the Czech Republic, they are
charming, short pieces. Of course here the
words were crystal clear, yet there seemed
to be some disjunction between the text provided
and what we heard – either Kožená omitted
the háček on ‘něbudu’ or
it was very, very slight (because later, in
the fifth song, the same accent was there
but distinctly weak on the word ‘jedině’).
It
was announced that Kožená would only
sing the first three verses of ‘Svatebni’
(‘Wedding Song’), a constraint presumably
due to the Radio 3 broadcast yet a shame as
this was tender in the extreme. And how beautiful
was Kožená’s sung ‘ř’, a sound
us poor English-speakers spend months even
approximating in speech!. The final ‘Pasala
volky na bikovinĕ’ (‘She was grazing
her cows’) was marvellously jaunty and witty.
Five
Mörike-Lieder by Wolf rounded off the
programmed recital (two attractive encores
supplied the ‘missing’ Dvořák
and Martinů). There was much musicality
to admire here, from the music-box ‘Zum neuen
Jahr’ to the Wagnerian-breadth-in-microcosm
of ‘Schlafendes Jesuskind’. A pity that Kožená’s
accent rounded out some of the harder German
sounds, softening the effect of some lines
and words (for example ‘schwarzen’ had little
of the ‘tz’ Germanic ‘z’ sound).
Nevertheless
this remains a memorable recital. The highlights
really were special and it will be interesting
to see if Kožená’s trajectory towards
super-stardom remains on course.
Colin
Clarke
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