Reviews

Magdalena Kožená/András Schiff

Recital at the Wigmore Hall

Magdalena Kožená followed Joyce DiDonato’s lead in playing two nights of the same programme at the Wigmore Hall. However there the similarities ended. While DiDonato’s programme spanned the ages and embraced some pretty dubious music, Kožená’s choices covered less than a century of composition and made a more satisfactory evening.

I have not experienced Kožená live for some time and in the interval the voice has grown considerably in size and cut. Her consonants are also now almost exemplary while before there was occasional sacrificing of diction for tone. She was sensitively accompanied by András Schiff who occasionally betrayed a lack of familiarity with the repertoire. This is also the second time recently that I have been aware of a slightly unpleasant souring of the Wigmore piano’s tone on release of the sustain pedal.

Kožená commenced on home territory with Janáèek’s Moravian Folk Poetry Songs. Janáèek cunningly reflects the somewhat equivocal nature of the poems and, as so often with his vocal writing, avoids the cheap and easy climax preferring to leave one guessing as the outcome of each miniature drama. Kožená unerringly caught the shifting atmosphere of each song with the dark toned Uneasy and the slightly risqué double entendre of Carnation being the highlights for me.

Dvoøák’s Biblical Songs can, in the wrong hands, seem unvaried fare using a series of Biblical texts which superficially evoke rather similar emotions. However this was never a problem in Kožená’s hands. She expertly and unshowily differentiated between each of the ten songs ranging from the simple, almost childlike trust of God is my shepherd, the anguished pleading of Hear my prayer, O Lord my God through to the joyous climax of Sing ye a joyful song.

Moving to Russia after the interval with Mussorgsky’s delightful The Nursery gave Kožená the chance to portray several different characters from the teeming, event filled arena of Russian childhood ranging from some extremely naughty and devious children, through a saintly, major key infused Mama to a truly terrifying Nanny scolding a little boy for omitting his own sins from the litany of his bedroom prayers! This was a superb performance of these songs with both Kožená and Schiff perfectly judging the fine line between characterisation and ham. It would be hard to imagine the cycle done better.

Bartók’s Village Scenes was the final cycle of this well thought out programme. Even the testing vocal range of these songs, coming at the end of the evening, appeared to hold no terrors for Kožená. She dispatched the many piercing encouragements to the bucolic knot tying of Wedding and still had voice aplenty for the drunken reelings of the Lads Dance.

Kožená was rightly rewarded with thunderous applause at the end of the evening and obliged the audience with two contrasting encores including a delightfully unhackneyed rendition of Songs my mother taught me. I very rarely award maximum star rating but have no hesitation in this case – an excellent evening.

– Sebastian Petit