Magdalena Kožená

Artist ∙ Classical

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, or Lady Rattle if you are so inclined, became a popular and critically celebrated figure in Europe before the age of 30. Her area of primary expertise is 18th century music, particularly Bach, but she has also had success in more Romantic opera and song repertory. Kožená's voice has been variously described as "sweet" and "fiery and melting," depending on her repertory; more constant are her vocal agility and sense of drama, which have become highly regarded. In 1997, Kožená made her recording debut with an album of Bach Arias. In 2004, she was named the Gramophone Awards "Artist of the Year." In 2009, Kožená's recording of Julietta fragments by Martinu won a Gramophone Award. Her 2023-2024 season included numerous recitals, concerts, and operatic appearances, and she issued the album Folk Songs in 2023, followed by a recording of Handel's Alcina in 2024.

February 28, 2013 at PST
Bizet: Carmen
65 Tracks
October 5, 2017 at PDT
Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande
Sir Simon Rattle has said that Debussy’s opera is a work he simply has to conduct every few years, and it was one of the first major projects he undertook after being named the London Symphony Orchestra’s new music director. His love for the score is evident everywhere as he coaxes some ravishing playing from this great orchestra. His cast is a fine one, with Magdalena Kozená (Mélisande) and Christian Gerhaher (Pelléas) a touching central pair, but it is the magnificently characterized Golaud of Gerald Finley that most impresses in a score where much stirs below the placid surface.
40 Tracks
February 18, 2016 at PST
Monteverdi
12 Tracks
February 5, 2012 at PST
Ladies Sing Baroque
23 Tracks
February 1, 2024 at PST
Handel: Alcina
86 Tracks
December 31, 1998 at PST
Handel: Dixit Dominus, Salve Regina, Laudate Pueri & Saeviat Tellus
26 Tracks
December 31, 2005 at PST
Mozart: Concert Arias (Bonus Track)
13 Tracks
September 12, 2019 at PDT
Debussy: Nocturnes – Duruflé: Requiem
12 Tracks
November 21, 2004 at PST
Lamento
17 Tracks
December 31, 2011 at PST
Ravel, Dvorák & Mahler: Love and Longing
18 Tracks
August 23, 2018 at PDT
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (Live)
Simon Rattle’s earlier recording chose the tenor and baritone option, but here, guest conducting with the magnificent Munich orchestra, he goes for the more popular mezzo and tenor lineup. And it results in a very fine performance. Skelton is powerful, plangent, honeyed, and sensitive by turns, and Kožená finds an inward, emotionally vibrant quality in her songs, sometimes almost draining the voice of color. Rattle, a Mahler conductor of true pedigree, handles the orchestral lines with total control and a vivid awareness of its inner life, and the BRSO, with their own classy Mahler heritage, respond gloriously. A very special experience.
6 Tracks
June 9, 2016 at PDT
Brahms: Lieder & Liebeslieder Waltzes (Live)
Kozená and company tackle the songs and waltzes of the passionate Romantic composer.
47 Tracks
December 31, 1999 at PST
Bach, J.S. : Whitsun Cantatas BWV 172, 59, 74 & 34
24 Tracks
August 31, 2019 at PDT
Soirée
30 Tracks
December 31, 1999 at PST
Bach: Cantatas, Vol. 3 - BWV 24, 71, 88, 93, 131, 185 and 177
43 Tracks
August 31, 2010 at PDT
Bach: Cantatas Vol. 11
42 Tracks
December 31, 2005 at PST
Mozart: La Clemenza di Tito
46 Tracks
June 6, 2024 at PDT
Czech Songs
These wonderful songs, by composers hailing from what is now the Czech Republic, span the years 1876 to 1943, from high-Romanticism to music of unsettling, almost disorienting Expressionism. In this live recording, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená combines crystal-clear diction and emotional depth, while the Czech Philharmonic under Simon Rattle brings every detail of these beautiful, often subtle scores to irresistible life.

We begin in the perfumed world of Bohuslav Martinů. With more than a passing nod to Debussy and Ravel (also inspired by the Far East), Martinů sets a selection of brief Japanese poems for his 1912 song cycle Nipponari. His use of modal harmonies alongside woodwind and harp paints impressions of Japanese traditional music as well as Japan itself, a land that 20th-century European audiences would have regarded as exotic, even shrouded in mystery.

Songs on One Page, the briefest of pieces that would each have been printed on one side of paper, date from Martinů’s enforced period of exile in the US during World War II. Setting Moravian poetry, each song is akin to a postcard back home, and embraces a variety of emotions from tongue-in-cheek wit (“Otevření slovečkem,” Track 9) to heartfelt passion (“Cesta k mile,” Track 10), and sheer joy (“Chodníček,” Track 11).

From Martinů we plunge into the rich, burnished Romanticism of Dvořák, the folk-inspired and often intensely beautiful Evening Songs and Op. 2 Songs bursting with nostalgia, and sharing much of the orchestral language found in the composer’s final three symphonies.

The two remaining composers on this wide-ranging album were both imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp, where the arts were used by the Nazis as propaganda to trick the outside world. Hans Krása, who was deported to Terezín in 1942, composed his Four Orchestral Songs in 1920, the angular music by turns ethereal, mournful, even agonized.

Gideon Klein composed his Lullaby in 1943 in Terezín itself, a brief and touching work of great beauty. Klein was to die just two years later, in Auschwitz.
26 Tracks
March 13, 1997 at PST
French Arias
15 Tracks
May 2, 2019 at PDT
Il giardino dei sospiri
25 Tracks
December 31, 1999 at PST
Handel: Italian Cantatas HWV 99, 145 & 170
21 Tracks
December 31, 2000 at PST
Le Belle Immagini: Mozart, Gluck & Myslivecek Arias
13 Tracks
December 31, 1999 at PST
Magdalena Kozená - Love Songs - Dvorák, Janácek, Martinu
42 Tracks
December 31, 2005 at PST
Mozart: Concert Arias
12 Tracks
December 31, 2007 at PST
Christmas Round the World
20 Tracks

Magdalena Kožená

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