Voyage (2011)

performed by Gerard Wyss (piano), Martina Janková (soprano)
composed by Antonin Dvorák, Modest Mussorgsky, Othmar Schoeck, Richard Strauss

Creamy-voiced soprano Martina Janková explores different kinds of love and human understanding through a variety of song cycles on this album aptly titled Voyage. With Gérard Wyss accompanying her in the most elegant, tasteful manner, Janková begins the album with a song cycle called The Nursery by Mussorgsky, which is the highlight of the entire CD. Janková truly gets into character, many characters, as a child telling a string of tales to her nanny. Janková is impassioned and breathless when talking about the bogeyman, ... Read More

Creamy-voiced soprano Martina Janková explores different kinds of love and human understanding through a variety of song cycles on this album aptly titled Voyage. With Gérard Wyss accompanying her in the most elegant, tasteful manner, Janková begins the album with a song cycle called The Nursery by Mussorgsky, which is the highlight of the entire CD. Janková truly gets into character, many characters, as a child telling a string of tales to her nanny. Janková is impassioned and breathless when talking about the bogeyman, dramatic as she recounts a beetle's attack, swoops and shrieks as she talks about her cat. Her attention to the diction is quite noteworthy, for it is clear and precise with its rolled Rs. There is warmth, core, and fullness to her mid-low voice, and her high notes have a fast vibrato and urgency that recall Frederica von Stade. The Strauss songs are each about a different flower. The first song, "Kornblumen," is very sweet and light, with bell-like clarity. However, one can hear one... Read Less