Though there are half a dozen versions of the Diary in the catalogue, the only one by a Czech tenor is Beno Blachut’s vintage performance. Dating from 1956, this was most interestingly coupled with Nicolai Gedda’s 1984 performance and issued as a double CD by Supraphon in 1996. Among others, the outstanding one is by Philip Langridge with Graham Johnson; and unlike Gedda, who is frankly operatic, Langridge sings the work as chamber music, even though he has also recorded it in an orchestral version. Peter Straka is closer to Langridge than to Gedda, even than to Blachut. He is lighter of voice than his compatriot – more a lyric than a heroic tenor – less dramatic but no less vivid in his response to the poetry. Janacek’s ability to draw a ravishing melodic line out of the particular qualities of the Czech language is nowhere more hauntingly shown than in the eighth song, with the erotic charge heightening as the young ploughboy is drawn fearfully and longingly towards the dark-eyed gipsy girl in the woods. Straka and Marian Lapsansky manage this beautifully, and their unanimity throughout the cycle helps to give it a freshness and even a simplicity that more highly charged performances can miss. Dagmar Peckova makes a sultry appearance as the girl. Incidentally, since the last disc of the work appeared, the mysterious author of the poems has at last been identified (in 1997): he was a minor Valachian writer named Ozef Kalda, some of whose other work was known to Janacek.
Room is found on the recording for a performance of the Piano Sonata. Lapsansky plays the first movement warmly, but without the sense of presentiment that its title suggests; more patience might have helped. The second movement, ‘Death’, succeeds better, ending softly and numbly. This would not be a first choice among performances, but it makes a bonus to the excellent performance of the Diary.'