Czech Republic Festival Janáček Brno 2024 [6] – Martinů, Janáček, Dvořák: Feng-yűn Song (soprano), Lenka Navrátilová (piano). Leoš Janáček Memorial, Brno, 24.11.2024. (GT)
Martinů – (selection from) ‘Songs on One Page’; ‘Songs on Two Pages’
Janáček – ‘Moravian Folk Poetry’ (selection)
Dvořák – ‘In Folk Tone’, Op.73 (selection)
On the final matinee of the Festival Janáček Brno 2024, this song recital overflowed with charming settings (many of just a few phrases) of diverse emotions: of love, joy, nature, sadness and nostalgia and offered an insight into the Czech mentality and soul. Feng-yűn Song has a wonderful affinity with the songs (several of which she sang in Chinese) and is a true interpreter. Her accompanist was exceptional in conveying every nuance of the music. She played on Janáček’s own piano, which is still in good condition, and was another cherished memory of the occasion.
Feng-jűn Song is a Chinese singer and voice teacher from the North-East of the Chinese People’s Republic and studied at the traditional ancestral Shang Dynasty school of Beijing Opera. She continued her studies in the Czech Republic with Professor Jiří Kotouč at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University and was awarded a doctorate, and went on to teach there between 1990 and 1994, and since which she taught at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory in Prague and the Higher Vocational College of Acting in Prague, and later at the Prague Conservatoire until 2013. Feng-yűn Song leads vocal courses on ‘holistic breathing’ for singers, professionals, and since her first studies in Beijing and in Prague she has translated Czech and Moravian poetry for her compatriots in China.
Her concertising with Lenka Navrátilová began in 2009, and they recorded a CD Songs of the Heart: Martinů – Janáček – Dvořák in 2022. This release also included a Chinese translation. Navrátilová is a professor of opera accompaniment at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and collaborates with many opera singers and ensembles. She works also with numerous orchestras including the Prague Symphony Orchestra and has toured both the United States and all over Europe and has collaborated with distinguished conductors such as Solti, Abbado, Mehta, Hrůša, and Chailly. She received an award for Outstanding Piano Accompaniment at the Antonín Dvořák International Singing Competition at Karlovy Vary.
The opening settings of ‘Songs on One Page’ by Martinů were both nostalgic and lyrical – such as invoking memories of ‘Dew as the sun sets’, while other settings from the collection, ‘Songs on Two Pages’ were about ‘A Moravian Girl,’ and ‘The Night Watchman’, another was about ‘Secret Love’ and ‘The Wayside Cross’. At the heart of this recital however was the selection from Janáček’s ‘Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs’. The theme of love occupied the first settings – somewhat reminding me of the verse of Burns in the unabashed romanticism, while the impassioned verses continued in ‘Message’, ‘Fly, falcon, grey bird, to my beloved, greet him a hundred times, and say to him: I love you faithfully…’
Janáček’s settings embrace both joy and grief, as in the setting for ‘Sorrow’ – ‘Oh, the path to my beloved across our garden has already grown over’. Or in ‘The Bench’ – ‘It was a bench made of alder wood, and my young man had a false heart’.
The final songs were from Dvořák’s ‘In Folk Tone,’ and closing the recital with ‘You were still in your cradle when they promised you to me. You still fed the geese as a child when you were already growing in my heart’. The songs were all beautifully performed, and the association between Feng-yűn Song and Lenka Navrátilová was extraordinary in the merging of every note and phrase, often it is the singer who acquires all the praise, but this recital revealed the sense of a complete affinity with the music by both musicians. The intensity of the singing was so tangible that one did not need to read the texts, as Feng-yűn Song’s facial expressions revealed every nuance and subtle emotion of the music, together with her arm and body movements. She is a quite extraordinary musician able through her eyes and voice to portray every sentiment and emotion of the songs.
This was a wonderfully enlightening recital of music of great Czech composers – with the genius of Leoš Janáček at its core – and which was especially pleasing that we were hearing these songs accompanied on Janáček’s own piano in the composer’s home in Brno.
Gregor Tassie