[USED:Cond.A] Songs: Kozena(Ms)johnson(P)

This disc received the 2001 Gramophone magazine award for "Best Vocal Recording."
The bright star of Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena shines with this absorbing and at times thrilling recording of love songs by Antonin Dvorak, Leos Janacek, and Bohuslav Martinu. In a preface to the liner notes, Kozena announces her delight in being able to re-discover and share this repertoire, especially the songs of Martinu, which she is right in saying are not well known outside of the Czech Republic. Indeed, the wonderfully engaging 'Songs for a Friend of My Country' receive here their world premiere recording.
Kozena clicks with the unadorned sentiment of Martinu's songs, which are so accessible and so resplendent with melodic and rhythmic details that one wonders why they are not better known. Martinu's response to folk-styled love texts descends from the model of Dvorak, whose more popular songs are well-represented here. It is in the Dvorak songs, particularly the early and vocally lush Op. 2 songs, that Kozena gets to show off the full range of her singing talents; the haunting "Vy vrouci pisne" is an unqualified highlight of this disc.