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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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