Zuzana Lapčíková, Zuzana Lapčíková Quintet - Advent and Christmas Songs from Moravia (2011)

The Advent and Christmas songs from the workshop of Zuzana Lapčíková reflect perhaps all her musical positions known to date (as a singer and cimbalom player with a penchant for seeking inspiration in jazz and across genres). Yet the Christmas high-spiritedness is frequently supplemented by intimate chamber mood, humility and solemnity. Besides several sprightly “catchy” pieces, she often soberly makes use of the superlative co-players of her jazz quintet for tranquil duets. Her singing is the golden thread accompanying us throughout – a singing sharing pure joy, elsewhere humility before the Creator and evoking the silent tenderness with which the Virgin Mary looks upon the Infant.

Few know as much about Moravian carols as Zuzana Lapčíková does; even fewer are able to retell them with such understanding and feeling. Christmas joy, however, is the culmination of four weeks of Advent contemplation and expectation. The Advent songs selected for this recording from Baroque hymn-books wondrously fuse “artful creation” with the magic poetics of folk, verbally handed-down songs. You will surely become fond of some of them at first hearing; with others you will discover more and more beautiful details at each listen – and quite possibly, you will not want to cast the CD aside even after Christmas had come and gone… Zuzana Lapčíková’s Advent-Christmas album – joy that will remain with you even after Christmas.