Penderecki: Magnificat; Kadisz (2015)

Penderecki's Magnificat And Kadisz By Antoni Wit

Conductor Antonio Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra have made extensive recordings of the orchestral and choral music of the Polish composer Kryzstof Penderecki (b. 1933). In his lengthy compositional career, Penderecki has composed in a variety of styles. He began as a modernist composing in an atonal style. In the 1970s, Penderecki began to compose in a more tonal and accessible "neo-romantic" idiom. In both styles, his music is passionately religious. And much of the earlier avant-garde music has a highly emotive visceral appeal.

This most recent CD of Wit and Penderecki includes two choral works composed 35 years apart. Penderecki's setting of the "Magnificat", a text set by many composers over the centuries, dates from 1973-74 and shows a combination of atonal and romantic elements. The "Kaddish" of 2009 is in a distinctly romantic vein. Both pieces are performed with passion by Wit and an ensemble consisting of a large orchestra and choruses and several soloists.

The Magnificat was composed to commemorate the 1200th anniversary of the Saltzburg Cathedral and is scored for orchestra, bass soloist, two choirs, a children's choir, and an ensemble of seven male singers. The work mixes atonal, modernistic sections with romanticism and tonality. Tone clusters, dissonances, eerie glissandos, and fragmented voices are juxtaposed with strong melodic and chordal passages. The effect is mixed with a great deal of tension in the piece. It is fascinating music but less immediately appealing that the St. Luke Passion which Penderecki composed in a modernist style a few years earlier. The six-movement work makes heavy use of counterpoint, with the second movement constituting a fugue and the sixth movement a passaglia. Both these movements, particularly the fugue, make use of heavily dissonant, fragmented elements as well, with passages lightly textured for voice or instruments contrasting with more massive sections. The passaglia was easier to follow with its bass figure and its passionate declamations for chorus. The other four movements likewise combine modernistic with tonal styles and include frequent changes in texture. A bass solo beautifully performed by Sebastian Gunerka to the accompaniment of a beating tympani is at the center of the work. The lengthy final section of the work includes large tonal climaxes intensified by atonal material. This is a difficult work which I enjoyed getting to know but which is not Penderecki's most immediately gripping score.

The Kaddish is a much more accessible work composed in 2009 to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto. It is a short work of about 20 minutes with four markedly contrasting movements. The opening movement sets a poem by an 18-year old young man who perished in the ghetto. It features a soprano solo which ranges from the declamatory to the lyrical. The second movement sets a text from Jeremiah and includes a growling spoken narration with passionate interjections from the chorus. The brief setting from the Book of Daniel in the third movement is marked "molto tranquillo" and performed by a large, hushed chorus a cappella. The finale sets the Jewish Kaddish, prayer for the dead, staying close to the traditional melody over a hushed pedal-point accompaniment and frequent interjections from the chorus. This is a moving, varied piece.

This recording, as are Wit's other recordings of Penderecki, are on Naxos, and Naxos kindly sent me this CD to review. In 2008, I became interested in the composer through other recordings of Wit and reviewed three earlier CDs here on Amazon. St Luke Passion ; Penderecki: Symphony 8 - Dies Irae / Aus Den Psalmen Davids ; Penderecki - Symphony No. 7 'Seven Gates of Jerusalem' . These CDs include works in both Penderecki's modernist and romantic styles. I was glad to have the opportunity to hear Penderecki and Wit again in this recent CD which was recorded in Warsaw in 2010. Richard Whitehouse wrote the liner notes and text and translations are included.

Total Time: 65:12

Robin Friedman