Help
Skip to main content

Janáček: The Diary of One Who Disappeared

& other works

Nicky Spence (tenor), Julius Drake (piano), Václava Housková (mezzo), VOICE, Victoria Samek (clarinet)

Awards:

This excellently recorded performance is strikingly direct. The ebb and flow of the drama is brilliantly captured. Nicky Spence’s tenor is flexible across a huge range…Drake’s accompaniment...

Janáček: The Diary of One Who Disappeared

& other works

Nicky Spence (tenor), Julius Drake (piano), Václava Housková (mezzo), VOICE, Victoria Samek (clarinet)

Purchase product

CD

$17.25

In stock: usually despatched within 1 working day

Download

From$8.25

Download

Audio formats guide

96 kHz, 24 bit, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

$14.50

44.1 kHz, 16 bit, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

$11.50

320 kbps, 320 kbps

$8.25

This release includes a digital booklet

Stream now Hi-RES 96 kHz, 24 bit

Awards:

This excellently recorded performance is strikingly direct. The ebb and flow of the drama is brilliantly captured. Nicky Spence’s tenor is flexible across a huge range…Drake’s accompaniment...

About

Like many of Janáček’s late masterpieces, the genesis of the ‘Diary’ is unseparable from its composer’s intense, obsessional love for Kamila Stösslová. A song-cycle like no other, here it’s the main work in a recital which showcases the extraordinary talents of Nicky Spence, Václava Housková and the vocal trio Voice.

Contents and tracklist

No 01 'One day I met a gypsy girl'. Potkal sem mladou cigánku
Track length1:21
No 02 'That black-eyed gypsy'. Ta černá cigánka –
Track length1:11
No 03 'Twilight glow-worms'. Svatojanské mušky
Track length1:46
No 04 'Already swallows'. Už mladé vlaštúvky –
Track length1:02
No 05 'Weary work is ploughing'. Těžko sa mi oře
Track length0:47
No 06 'Hey there, my tawny oxen'. Hajsi, vy siví volci
Track length1:27
No 07 'I've got a loose axle'. Ztratil sem kolíček
Track length1:03
No 08 'Don't look, my oxen'. Nehleďte, volečci
Track length1:07
No 09 'Welcome my handsome one'. Vítaj, Janíčku –
Track length2:24
No 10 'God all-powerful, God eternal'. Bože dálný, nesmrtelný
Track length3:34
No 11 'From the ripening cornfield'. Tahne vůňa k lesu
Track length3:24
No 12 'Forest's shady height'. Tmavá olšinka –
Track length0:53
No 13 Intermezzo erotico –
Track length2:56
No 14 'See how high the sun is'. Slnéčko sa zdvihá –
Track length1:00
No 15 'Now my tawny oxen'. Moji siví volci
Track length0:59
No 16 'What has come over me?'. Co sem to udělal?
Track length1:21
No 17 'Who can escape his fate?'. Co komu súzeno? –
Track length1:38
No 18 'Nothing matters now'. Nedbám já včil o nic
Track length1:03
No 19 'See that thieving magpie'. Letí straka, letí
Track length1:19
No 20 'Have I a beauty'. Mám já panenku –
Track length0:45
No 21 'Father, how wrong you were'. Můj drahý tatíčku
Track length1:05
No 22 'Then farewell, my dearest land'. S Bohem, rodný kraju
Track length2:27
No 1 'The mole creeps along the hedgerow'. Leze krtek podle meze
Track length1:15
No 2 'Karel rode off to hell'. Karel do pekla zajel
Track length0:34
No 3 'Franta the knacker's son played the bass fiddle'. Franta rasů, hrál na basu
Track length1:06
No 4 'I'm giving a little talk'. Dělám, dělám kázání
Track length1:06
No 5 'Ho, ho, off go the cows'. Hó, hó, krávy dó
Track length1:23
No 6 'A white goat's picking pears'. Koza bílá hrušky sbírá
Track length0:49
No 7 'Vašek, pašek, the drummer'. Vašek, pašek, bubeník
Track length0:50
No 8 'Frantík, Frantík'. Frantíku, Frantíku
Track length0:31
No 08 'Pennyroyal'. Polajka
Track length1:06
No 04 'Heat from my love'. Záře od milého
Track length1:03
No 16 'Constancy'. Stálosť
Track length1:06
No 17 'Who's the posy for?'. Komu kytka?
Track length1:41
No 20 'Desire'. Tužba
Track length0:48
No 22 'Memories'. Památky
Track length3:33
No 30 'Rosemary'. Rozmarýn
Track length2:55
No 33 'Slander'. Pomluva
Track length2:00
No 01 'Love'. Łáska
Track length1:24
No 19 'The posy'. Pérečko
Track length1:37
No 28 'Uncertainty'. Nejistota
Track length1:11
No 50 'Musicians'. Muzikanti
Track length1:32

Spotlight on this release

Awards and reviews

September 2019

This excellently recorded performance is strikingly direct. The ebb and flow of the drama is brilliantly captured. Nicky Spence’s tenor is flexible across a huge range…Drake’s accompaniment is always alive to the operatic nuance of the work…This is a magnificent realisation of a viscerally rewarding work.

August 2019

Not only does Spence’s voice offer a rare mix of steely strength and velvety tenderness but his bright, vibrant timbre communicates a touching, wide-eyed sense of ardent longing, tinged with melancholy...[Drake] conjures up the cycle’s sound world superbly from the start…As persuasive an introduction to Janáček’s songs as you’ll find.

June 2019

Spence is in absolutely glorious voice, cresting the top Cs with ease – and unlike most of his predecessors on disc genuinely sounds like he could plough a field and marshal a team of oxen.

30th June 2019

Spence is prized for his operatic Janáček roles and delivers a wide variety of tone, while Drake adds quasi-orchestral drama to the piano part. The makeweight works are welcome, revealing the composer’s roots in Czech and Moravian tradition.

19th July 2019

He’s convincingly earthy as the village boy of this quasi song cycle, unafraid of top Cs and movingly tender when needed. The drama quotient is always high...Best of all, the pianist Julius Drake invests his instrument with almost orchestral panache, masterfully conjuring up every image.

classicalsource.com October 2019

Nicky Spence’s searing yet beautiful account with admirable support from Julius Drake makes for compelling listening.

What our community is saying

View download progress