Magdalena Kozena.(Sound Recording Review)

SONGS by Ravel, Shostakovich, Respighi, Schulhoff, Britten. Martineau, piano, Henschel Quartett. Texts and translations. Deutsche Grammophon B0002124-02

Magdalena Kozena seems to be devouring repertoire--soprano roles, mezzo parts, Baroque music, French opera--and putting a distinctive stamp on all her projects. In a fascinating, well-assembled program juxtaposing early-twentieth-century song cycles in different languages and styles, Kozena reveals her superb musicianship and real artistry as a chamber musician.

Five languages are featured (actually six, if you count Robert Burns's Scottish "Highland Balou"), none of them the singer's native Czech. While a program note claims that Kozena is aiming to explore the effect language has on musical line, her fresh voice with its clear emission doesn't really react to linguistic styles: the strengths of this recital actually lie more in its musical intensity and dramatic sureness.

French, for example, sits perfectly in Kozena's slender voice. From the tender, mysterious caress of the opening phrase of "Nahandove," exquisitely partnered by Jiri Barta's cello, Kozena inhabits the indolent, mesmerizing tropical world of Ravel's Chansons Madecasses, pianist Malcolm Martineau revels in the percussive and primitive sounds, especially in "Aoua!," a litany of warning to Madagascans against white tyranny and its savage results.

Dmitri Shostakovich's Satires, on Russian poems by Sasha Chorny, is a collection of five short songs, acerbic and bitingly witty, written in 1960, a particularly bleak time for the composer. The stark and harsh "To a Critic" drips with disdain, while "Descendants" expresses the fear and frustration of the politically oppressed. While the narrator's ancestors endured hardship in hopes of a better life for future generations, the banging, obsessive piano part catapults him to his defiant shout, "May my descendants bang ...