Handel: Joshua: Oh! had I Jubal's lyre

“The voice that goes straight to the heart” Sunday Times

“…Magdalena Kožená beguiles and enchants throughout this captivating collection. The Czech mezzo's mature voice combines radiant purity with burnished intensity and…she negotiates Handel's quick-fire show-pieces with dazzling bravura. The musicians of Venice Baroque respond to her incantations with thrilling energy and passion. All in all, the results are completely spell-binding.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2007 *****

“With most items familiar from previous Handel aria anthologies, on paper this looks full of tired clichés. Thankfully, the stirring and passionate execution of Handel's music is anything but dull routine. KoOená and her Venetian accomplices might not be giving us anything deeply perceptive but everybody involved sounds as if they are engaged with the music. In particular, the Venice Baroque Orchestra sound admirably absorbed in the dramatic world of each aria.
KoOená has a good stab at this, too, but does not quite capture the personality and situation of each character. Alcina's heartbroken first encounter of a man being beyond her seductive power in 'Ah! mio cor!' is ravishing but its slowly creeping pathos is not a natural opener for a disc like this, and KoOená – albeit passionate – does not capture the depth of Alcina's complex psychological condition. An extrovert 'Cara speme' does not quite fit Sesto's emotional self-inquiry.
KoOená is much better at conveying the scheming Agrippina's anxious plea to the gods and 'Scherza infida' is finely judged, its best passages not too far off the benchmark set by Janet Baker, Sarah Connolly and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (alas, it is let down by the staccato B section). The most convincing synthesis of musical outpouring and dramatic mood is Melissa's 'Desterò dall'empia dite' (from Amadigi).
In Dejanira's mad scene from Hercules, KoOená's affected vowels and hammed-up insanity rob it of the poignancy that understatement achieves much better; Dejanira is a distraught heroine, not a lunatic shrieking that the Martians have landed. A similar approach makes for an over-egged mad scene from Orlando. But despite the frequent limitation of one-dimensional characterisation, these appealing performances have strength and colour.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The music is beautiful and the overall sound is caressing and sensual” Opera Now

“The two Respighi songs are magical performances – Stornellatrice, with the golden voice at its richest and E se un giorno tornasse, a study in subtle shading of tone, a dialogue between a mother and her dying, jilted daughter. For those two brief items alone, superbly transferred, this collection is an essential for all admirers of this singer, but there's much more. Handel's 'O had I Jubal's lyre' in German rather than English may be odd, but the performance sparkles and among the Lieder it's good to have not just 'Der Nussbaum' – the Schumann song which was always special to her – but two previously unpublished, 'Widmung' from the Myrthe songs and 'Ich grolle nicht' from Dichterliebe.
Through the whole collection the superb transfers capture the full–throated glory of los Angeles's voice at the beginning of her career.
The 1942 recordings of two Hungarian folk– songs, previously unpublished, may be rough and limited – made when the singer was only 18 – but they amply demonstrate that already the voice was fully developed in its beauty. No fewer than 18 of the 27 items are of Spanish songs, and though in one or two instances los Angeles was destined to make even more idiomatic readings later with a Spanish accompanist, these ones with Gerald Moore as her partner have a freshness and brilliance that has rarely been matched in this repertory. In particular it's good to have her first recording of the encore number which she made her own, Clavelitos.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010