Masaryk: Národní Písně: Moravian and Slovak Folk Songs Reimagined
Author: Tommie Black-Roff
View album and artist detailsAlbum and Artist Details
Artist/band: |
Lenka Lichtenberg |
Label: |
ARC Music |
Magazine Review Date: |
November/2017 |
A devoted exponent of Yiddish song, Lenka Lichtenberg returns with a deeply personal album that reimagines a 75-year-old collection of Czechoslovakian national songs. The award-winning Canadian musician has spent a career hopping genres, languages and international stages, only now choosing to devote an album to her birthplace and mother tongue. The timing could not be more poignant, given the passing away of Lichtenberg's Czech mother in 2016.
Songs are steeped in a romantic mid-20th century nostalgia, an especially good fit given the soaring, emotive nature of Lichtenberg's vocals. From the anthemic ‘Láska, Boze, Láska' to the wildly fluctuating ‘Ach, Neni Tu, Neni’, her characteristic adventurousness in structure is on display. The highly produced style and mix of genres is also unmistakably hers, despite being recorded mostly in the Czech Republic, many miles from her usual roster of Canadian world-music musicians. Indeed, it is admirable that the singer collaborated so intimately with Czech musicians such as percussionist Tomáš Reindl to produce the album. And while native listeners will doubtless take the most from this Czech repertoire, the rest of us still have another fascinating window upon which to admire Lichtenberg's restless imagination.
Songs are steeped in a romantic mid-20th century nostalgia, an especially good fit given the soaring, emotive nature of Lichtenberg's vocals. From the anthemic ‘Láska, Boze, Láska' to the wildly fluctuating ‘Ach, Neni Tu, Neni’, her characteristic adventurousness in structure is on display. The highly produced style and mix of genres is also unmistakably hers, despite being recorded mostly in the Czech Republic, many miles from her usual roster of Canadian world-music musicians. Indeed, it is admirable that the singer collaborated so intimately with Czech musicians such as percussionist Tomáš Reindl to produce the album. And while native listeners will doubtless take the most from this Czech repertoire, the rest of us still have another fascinating window upon which to admire Lichtenberg's restless imagination.
