A belated thank you for your support, Antonio.

Monday, April 13, 2020

Krzysztof Penderecki - Symphony No. 7 (Antoni Wit)


Information

Composer: Krzysztof Penderecki
  • Symphony No. 7 'Seven Gates of Jerusalem'

Olga Pasichnyk, soprano; Aga Mikołaj, soprano
Ewa Marciniec, alto; Wiesław Ochman, tenor
Romuald Tesarowicz, bass; Boris Carmeli, narrator

Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir
Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra
Antoni Wit, conductor

Date: 2006
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.557766

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Review

Penderecki the penitential’s Jerusalem is pretty heavy going

Penderecki’s Seventh Symphony (1997) was the result of a prestigious commission to mark the third millennium of the city of Jerusalem. Frivolity was clearly not required, though I wonder whether the state of Israel really welcomed something as overwhelmingly penitential as the Gates of Jerusalem. Exuberance and euphoria are in very short supply, and the texts, selected from the Psalms and the Old Testament prophets, suggest a profound, helpless awe in face of the Almighty. Even the symphony’s sudden, would-be affirmative final cadence sounds like nothing more than a half-hearted attempt to snatch joy from the jaws of sorrow.

The way the first section’s boldly sculpted opening rapidly loses momentum represents the composer’s familiar preference for basic 19th-century harmonic and melodic archetypes to any more forthright or austere 20th-century modes of expression. In places the music sounds rather like Verdi’s “Dies irae” at half speed, with drooping chromatics and plodding rhythms; and although the symphony isn’t entirely devoid of imaginative textural touches – the use of the bass trumpet to suggest the voice of God, and the presence of a narrator a good deal more charismatic than the solo singers are allowed to be by the nature of the vocal writing – there are all too many passages that suggest the dutiful padding which composers fall back on when a work lasting at least an hour has been called for.

After all this, I must emphasise that this performance is admirably focused on the task in hand, with the hard-working soprano soloists particularly impressive. The spacious recording has good presence and definition.

-- Arnold WhittallGramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10
MusicWeb International  BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

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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 HiroshimaSymphony No. 3, his St. Luke PassionPolish RequiemAnaklasis 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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