Sacred music takes up fully half of nineteenth century Polish composer Stanislaw Moniuszko's output -- the other half is dominated by opera, and his overall output is typified by the opera Halka, his most famous work -- but heretofore little has appeared on disc to represent Moniuszko's efforts on behalf of the church. As good as Halka is, Dux's Stanislaw Moniusko: Masses, featuring soloists and the Warsaw Philharmonic Chorus under the direction of Henryk Wojnarowski, indicates that sacred music may have been Moniuszko's ...
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Sacred music takes up fully half of nineteenth century Polish composer Stanislaw Moniuszko's output -- the other half is dominated by opera, and his overall output is typified by the opera Halka, his most famous work -- but heretofore little has appeared on disc to represent Moniuszko's efforts on behalf of the church. As good as Halka is, Dux's Stanislaw Moniusko: Masses, featuring soloists and the Warsaw Philharmonic Chorus under the direction of Henryk Wojnarowski, indicates that sacred music may have been Moniuszko's strongest suit. The three masses included here were all written in Moniuszko's last years; the Latin Mass in D flat written in 1870, the Funeral Mass in G minor in 1871, and the St. Peter's Mass in B flat in 1872, the last work premiered less than a month before its composer breathed his last. The music is alternatively muscular and transcendently devotional and embodies the finest ideals of nineteenth century sacred choral music in its variety; clear-eyed optimism; passages of hardy,...
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