Janacek: The Diary of One Who Disappeared; Piano Works.

[] Philogene; Bostridge; Ades, piano. Texts and translations. EMI Classics 5 57219 2

The new EMI Classics recording of Janacek's The Diary of One Who Disappeared is a follow-up to staged performances of the work directed by Deborah Warner for English National Opera in 1999, a production that was seen in New York last May and June. Ian Bostridge and Ruby Philogene reprise their stage roles as the Young Man and the Gypsy on disc, with composer Thomas Ades as the pianist, taking the place of the estimable Julius Drake, a frequent Bostridge collaborator, who played for the live stagings. Unlike the staged version, which featured a new English translation by Seamus Heaney, the recording is in the original Czech.

Janacek's Diary is a setting of anonymously published poems that were purportedly the work of a self-taught farmer's son. The high quality of the writing belied this assertion, but the author remained unknown until 1997, when evidence finally appeared that identified the verses as a literary hoax, penned in fact by an obscure Moravian poet.

Bostridge's musical intelligence and polished vocal style are a good match for the literary sophistication of the text, yet he still provides the surges of coarse, authentic emotion one expects from this tale of ...