Petr Eben

Magdalena Kožená, one of the most acclaimed recitalists of today, presents a personal collection of songs she has known since childhood and that form some of her earliest musical influences.

A haunting collection of songs by Czech composers such as Dvorák, Janácek, Martinu, Schulhoff and Eben, all deeply rooted in the rich Czech folk song tradition.

Like Magdalena explains in the press/booklettext about the songs on the album: “They are just the sort a mother would sing to her baby. My mother is not a professional singer, but she loved to sing and knew a lot of songs! There is a particular tradition of singing to children in our country, much stronger, I would say, than one sees any more in the West. It was really important that in each family these songs would be handed down, taught to the children.”

Kožená’s musical partners on the album include her long-standing recital partner Malcolm Martineau, and soprano Dorothea Röschmann, who joins her in Dvorák’s Moravian duets. This is Magdalena Kožená’s most personal album so far, exploring the richness of her cultural background and her own musical memories.

Tomáš Jamník and Ivo Kahánek’s first album (Martinu – Janácek – Kabelác) was hailed by Harmonie magazine as the debut of the decade, while Classics Today gave it a rating of 10/10 and designated it as one of the best cello recitals of recent years.

For their second album, the young artists have chosen compositions that originated within a short period of time, between 1952 and 1959. Martinu’s Sonata and Variations resound with yearning for the homeland he is never to return to, the composer employing a simple and cordial language. Suita balladica by the twenty-six-year-old Petr Eben is characterised by a similar inosculation of joyful, dance music with an almost ghostlike grief connected with the author’s personal wartime experiences. Sluka’s most frequently performed piece, the musically simple and lucid Sonata for violoncello and piano, serves to soothe the heightened emotions evoked by the previous compositions and ends the CD on a note of reconciliation.

The two musicians play with an ebullience and engagement commensurate to their tender years, yet at the same time manifest a remarkable maturity and understanding of the weighty themes of the compositions. An intimate, communicative album.

Martinu, Eben, Sluka for cello and piano – pain and joy in music.