Krzysztof Penderecki - Sinfoniettas; Oboe Capriccio (Antoni Wit)

Information

Composer: Krzysztof Penderecki

• (01) Three Pieces in Old Style
• (04) Serenade
• (06) Sinfonietta No. 1
• (08) Intermezzo for 24 strings
• (09) Capriccio for Oboe and String Orchestra
• (10) Sinfonietta No. 2

Jean-Louis Capezzali, oboe (9)
Artur Pachlewski, clarinet (10-13)

Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra
Antoni Wit, conductor

Date: 2012
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572212

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Review

ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

There’s a huge range of style in these works for smaller forces, from the baroque/romantic pastiche of Three Pieces in Old Style (based on a 1963 film score), through the avant-garde Intermezzo for 24 Strings and the amazingly virtuosic Capriccio for Oboe and String Orchestra, to the later, neo-romantic Serenade and two Sinfoniettas. Even in these slighter, lighter works Penderecki’s music is no laugh riot. The Serenade, for example, contains two movements: a creepy Passacaglia and a sad concluding Larghetto. The First Sinfonietta opens as if in the middle of quoting The Rite of Spring, while the Second Sinfonietta is an expansion of a chamber work for clarinet.

Both of the woodwind soloists, Artur Pachlewski (clarinet) and Jean-Louis Capezzali (oboe), play exceptionally well, especially Capezzali, who exhibits frankly insane agility in the Capriccio. Antoni Wit, as always, is the most reliable possible guide to this repertoire, combining accuracy with warmth and expressive intensity. Somehow he does so without making an ugly sound, and believe me that’s not always easy. Of course it helps that the Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra has a particularly rich-sounding string section. Excellently engineered, this latest release is well up to the high standards of Naxos’ Penderecki series.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/Apr12/Penderecki_sinfoniettas_8572212.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/feb/12/penderecki-warsaw-chamber-review
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/album-reviews/penderecki-sinfoniettas-capricio-for-oboe-and-other-works-1.492089
https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.572212&languageid=EN
https://www.amazon.com/Penderecki-Sinfoniettas-Capriccio-Antoni-Wit/dp/B0071W7EE0

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Krzysztof Penderecki (23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) is a Polish composer and conductor. He studied music at Jagiellonian University and the Academy of Music in Kraków. Penderecki has composed four operas, eight symphonies and other orchestral pieces, a variety of instrumental concertos, choral settings of mainly religious texts, as well as chamber and instrumental works. Among his best known works are Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, Symphony No. 3, his St. Luke Passion, Polish Requiem, Anaklasis and Utrenja. In 2012, The Guardian called him the Poland's greatest living composer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krzysztof_Penderecki
http://www.krzysztofpenderecki.eu/en/

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Antoni Wit (born February 7, 1944 in Kraków) is a Polish conductor. He studied with Henryk Czyż, Krzysztof Penderecki and Nadia Boulanger. He has recorded over 90 albums, most of them for the Naxos label, and many of them with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, of which he managed and was artistic director from 1983 to 2000. Since year 2002 he has been music director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. Wit specializes in the works of Polish composers such as Henryk Gorecki, Witold Lutosławski, Karol Szymanowski and Krzysztof Penderecki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Wit

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