The album tour is an important means of promotion for classical as well as pop artists. This recital by mezzo Magdalena Kožená represented the London stop-off of a European roadshow in which the singer performs songs from her Czech homeland. Many of them featured on her recent CD Songs My Mother Taught Me, named after one of Dvořák's nostalgic Gypsy Melodies, surrounded by a sea of unfamiliar items. Indeed, one of the major attractions of the concert was the opportunity to sample pieces written between the 1880s and the 1960s that rarely get a UK outing.

In some respects, Kožená is a natural interpreter of this music, not only linguistically but also in her impeccable musicianship, flawless intonation and the scale of her singing. But there were limitations, both vocal and interpretative. The emotional climaxes generally occurred at the top of her range, where her tone thins out rather than blossoms. She also possesses a limited range of colours to paint in the wide variety of moods traversed. Erwin Schulhoff's inventive Folksongs and Dances from the Tesinsko Region were a reminder of a major talent snuffed out when the composer died in a concentration camp in 1942. The sheer ingenuity of Martinu's Songs on Two Pages suggested what gems lie hidden in the enormous output of a still largely unknown composer. The strength of the Janáček and Dvořák pieces was more predictable, though neither those of Vitezslav Novak nor Petr Eben made a deep impression.