Lettere Amorose

"She soars the heights and plumbs the depths with fitting ardour...it is hard not to be swept away by such intensity felt and highly dramatic readings...[Pitzl] and his crack instrumental ensemble enrich the spare simplicity of the written scores with endlessly varied and inventive realisations...These are vibrant, virtuoso performances, never slacking in their spontaneity and energy." BBC Music Magazine, November 2010 *****

"Her voice...is as mellifluous and pliable as ever, light and translucent in the upper reaches while brooding and dark in the lower ones...[Private Musicke] provides an imaginative and inventive accompaniment." Gramophone Magazine, November 2010

Magdalena Kožená explores the early Italian Baroque music of Monteverdi and his contemporaries with rewarding results. Inspired by the improvisational nature of much of this music, Kožená reveals yet another aspect of her musical personality.

Teamed with the six string-instrumentalists and percussion of the acclaimed consort group Private Musicke, Magdalena Kožená delivers an album in a fascinatingly different setting from any of her previous Baroque recordings.

In music ranging from simple lamento to rollicking dance tunes, Magdalena Kožená unleashes her refined vocal and expressive abilities to convey every nuance implicit in the music and the texts.

"The Czech mezzo . . . produces one of the loveliest sounds to be heard on the world's stages - a flowing, spring-water-like tone that evokes the term 'luminous'." (Opera News)