This Grammy-winning, major-label release featuring Krzysztof Penderecki himself as conductor, leading an enthusiastic Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, may be taken as an official offering of Penderecki's choral music on the part of the composer, and it fills the bill in this regard. The program features a new work, the Dies Illa for three soloists, choir, and orchestra (2014), a pair of pieces from the mid-1990s, and a 1958 set of Psalms from the composer's serialist period. Penderecki goes in reverse chronological ...
Read More
This Grammy-winning, major-label release featuring Krzysztof Penderecki himself as conductor, leading an enthusiastic Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, may be taken as an official offering of Penderecki's choral music on the part of the composer, and it fills the bill in this regard. The program features a new work, the Dies Illa for three soloists, choir, and orchestra (2014), a pair of pieces from the mid-1990s, and a 1958 set of Psalms from the composer's serialist period. Penderecki goes in reverse chronological order: the program opens with the Dies Illa, which was written in memory of the victims of World War I and commissioned by the Flanders Festival. The work is a full-fledged, neo-Romantic, choral piece, with plenty of brass depicting the day-of-judgment themes of the text. The two orchestral hymns, to St. Daniel and St. Adalbert, are much quieter, with mood and texture both influenced by Orthodox church music, and the four Psalms are spare works showing the impact of Webern, the model...
Read Less
