Magdalena Kozena & Mitsuko Uchida, Wigmore Hall

Few would dispute that mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena is one of the current greats. Born in Brno, the Czech singer established an international career in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse, and after dazzling with recordings of Bach and Handel she quickly came to prove herself one of the most distinctive and diverse of opera divas. Now 41, and with a deeper, richer voice than in her earlier roles, Kozena is the subject of a year-long Wigmore Hall celebration that will see her collaborate with peers of similar stature.
To launch her season, Kozena will perform two matching concerts with the illustrious Mitsuko Uchida, a pianist of unparalleled clarity and colour. Raised in Japan but naturalised as British, Uchida has dazzled across the entire piano repertoire. Her recordings of both First and Second Viennese School composers have become canonized classics. This collaboration with Kozena marks the meeting of two marvelously talented musical minds.
The line-up spans a century of music. Schumann’s five-part Gedichte der Konigin Maria Stuart (1852), composed during an episode of crisis and career catastrophe, is an understated look at the Queen of Scots’ life. We see her as young girl, worried mother and meditative prisoner. This will be followed by a selection of Hugo Wolf’s Morike Lieder (1888), the composer’s reputation-creating book of idyllic pastoral settings.
After an interval, the concert will resume with Dvorak’s contemporaneous Love Songs (1888), recorded by Kozena to great acclaim in 2000. Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, Kozena and Uchida reach the twentieth century for a rare outing of Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder (1901). Written before his crucial experimentations with serialism, these eight cabaret songs boast a keen sense of theatre, and manage to challenge and delight while remaining within tonality. They provide a snapshot of their composer’s musical and satirical brilliance.