Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020)

Started by Maciek, April 12, 2007, 03:43:03 PM

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MDL

Quote from: snyprrr on November 22, 2011, 06:37:48 AM
I've had the solo choral music before, but prefer to have the full orchestra. I'm left with:

St. Luke's Passion: I used to have the Argo disc, and I'm not sure why I sold it.

Dies Irae: I'll see if this is on YouTube.

Utrenya: This is probably the one to go for, no? Ormandy was lost on Ebay last week, so, PolskieNag?

Polish Requiem: I'm probably least interested in this one, though I did like the Lacrimosa on the EMI.


The Naxos/Wit recordings of The St Luke Passion and the Dies Irae are both excellent. Ormandy's Utrenja is very good, but as I've pointed out elsewhere, it's only the first half, The Entombment of Christ. If you want both parts, Naxos/Wit will do, although in many ways, I prefer the old PolskieNag. The Polish Requiem has its moments (the Lacrimosa and some nice clusters in the Lux Aeterna), but most of it is a lumbering bore.

snyprrr

Quote from: MDL on November 24, 2011, 08:26:19 AM
The Naxos/Wit recordings of The St Luke Passion and the Dies Irae are both excellent. Ormandy's Utrenja is very good, but as I've pointed out elsewhere, it's only the first half, The Entombment of Christ. If you want both parts, Naxos/Wit will do, although in many ways, I prefer the old PolskieNag. The Polish Requiem has its moments (the Lacrimosa and some nice clusters in the Lux Aeterna), but most of it is a lumbering bore.

Will take note. Thanks for the advice.

lescamil

Regarding Utrenja, I like both the new Wit recording and the old Polskie Nagrania recording. I like the Wit for clarity, but I like the PN for more of a visceral, gritty experience. In my opinion, you need both to really take it in. The Ormandy is great, yes. Shame he didn't do more Penderecki. The coupling of Persichetti's 9th symphony is a great addition, too.
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MDL

Quote from: lescamil on November 24, 2011, 05:09:42 PM
Regarding Utrenja, I like both the new Wit recording and the old Polskie Nagrania recording. I like the Wit for clarity, but I like the PN for more of a visceral, gritty experience. In my opinion, you need both to really take it in. The Ormandy is great, yes. Shame he didn't do more Penderecki.

Yup, I agree on every point. I've got the Ormandy on cassette which I recorded from the RCA LP in 1981. Is the CD one of those printed-to-order-only specials?


snyprrr

Quote from: MDL on November 24, 2011, 08:26:19 AM
The Naxos/Wit recordings of The St Luke Passion and the Dies Irae are both excellent. Ormandy's Utrenja is very good, but as I've pointed out elsewhere, it's only the first half, The Entombment of Christ. If you want both parts, Naxos/Wit will do, although in many ways, I prefer the old PolskieNag. The Polish Requiem has its moments (the Lacrimosa and some nice clusters in the Lux Aeterna), but most of it is a lumbering bore.

I have really taken to the Magnificat. There is a certain integration there that I'm missing in Utreja, as if this was KP's 'follow up album', and he made it a little more 'listener friendly' (I mean, in the good way! ;)). Out of all the other Big pieces, I think this is the one that has satisfied my certain need for a certain type of sound from KP.

All these Big Choral Works can get a bit much all in one season of listening! ??? :-X :-\ Oy!!

snyprrr

:btw-

TheWelleszCompany has Paradise Lost up on YouTube. Too long for me. What's the best part? ;D

MDL

Quote from: snyprrr on November 26, 2011, 10:07:13 PM
I have really taken to the Magnificat. There is a certain integration there that I'm missing in Utreja, as if this was KP's 'follow up album', and he made it a little more 'listener friendly' (I mean, in the good way! ;)). Out of all the other Big pieces, I think this is the one that has satisfied my certain need for a certain type of sound from KP.

All these Big Choral Works can get a bit much all in one season of listening! ??? :-X :-\ Oy!!

Penderecki's Magnificat is one of his finest creations. I doubt the EMI recording will ever be bettered, but I'd still love to hear Wit's take on it.

not edward

This looks like a useful offering from Naxos: http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572212

Some lesser-known pieces (Intermezzo, Three Pieces in Old Style, Serenade and the Capriccio for oboe and strings), plus the two sinfoniettas (aka the string trio and clarinet quartet in expanded ensembles).
"I don't at all mind actively disliking a piece of contemporary music, but in order to feel happy about it I must consciously understand why I dislike it. Otherwise it remains in my mind as unfinished business."
-- Aaron Copland, The Pleasures of Music

Cato

SO... will the Symphony #6 ever be finished? 

Or will the present version be it?
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

lescamil

Quote from: James on March 19, 2012, 02:37:18 PM
Nonesuch Records releases an album of works by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki and composer/Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. The artists' work was presented side-by-side in two concerts in September 2011, highlighting Penderecki's influence on younger composers, at the European Congress of Culture in Wroc aw. In its report on the Congress, which celebrated Poland's presidency of the European Union, London's Independent called Penderecki "Poland's godfather of the musical avant-garde" and Greenwood "the doyen of English art-pop," describing their concert as "rapturously received." The composers went to Kraków's Alvernia Studios immediately after the performances to oversee the recording of the same music, along with one other piece by Greenwood.

The Wroc aw concert included two works by Penderecki dating from the early 1960s: "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" and "Polymorphia (for 48 strings)," the latter of which inspired the Greenwood piece on the program, "48 Responses to Polymorphia;" all three are on the Nonesuch record. An additional piece by Greenwood, "Popcorn Superhet Receiver," which was inspired by Penderecki's "Threnody," also was recorded for the album. (Greenwood incorporated material from "Popcorn Superhet Receiver" in his award-winning score for the 2008 film There Will Be Blood, which was also released on Nonesuch.)

[asin]B00722ZH5W[/asin]

I heard this album though NPR and honestly I didn't like either the Greenwood pieces nor the performances given by AUKSO. The Greenwood pieces sounded like cheap imitations of Penderecki's great early works, although Popcorn Superhet Receiver had some interesting variety to it that made it more appreciable. The readings of the Threnody and Polymorphia are too 'nice'. There is none of the raw, visceral power of the old Penderecki-conducted recordings. Don't get this album for another reading of the Penderecki classics. Only get it if you want to hear the Greenwood pieces, which could appeal to some.
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ibanezmonster

Quote from: Cato on March 19, 2012, 02:50:02 PM
SO... will the Symphony #6 ever be finished? 

Or will the present version be it?
The world may never know...

CRCulver

I subscribe to Radiohead updates on Facebook. I checked the comments under the various Penderecki announcements to check for "This isn't music, this is noise!" and "Who the fuck is Penderecki?" I wasn't disappointed.

snyprrr

Quote from: CRCulver on March 20, 2012, 12:26:03 AM
I subscribe to Radiohead updates on Facebook. I checked the comments under the various Penderecki announcements to check for "This isn't music, this is noise!" and "Who the fuck is Penderecki?" I wasn't disappointed.

LOLZ!

For some reason I now feel that all is right with the world. Things are as they should be?

The new erato

Naxos are now packaging theiir Penderecki releases in a box. Around 16 GBP for 5 discs, listed under september releases at mdt.co.uk. I will avail myself eventually I think. There's also a new Casella release under La Vecchia.

snyprrr

I was listening to Flourescenes, and I was starting to become embarrassed by the seeming lack of... something,... complexity? I dunno, but some Penderecki can sometimes seem just a string of sounds. The typewriter and the alarm clock (strawberry?, I wonder...) didn't quite do it for me this time, but there was other stuff I liked. It's like Xenakis but without ANY math whatsoever. Whatever you say about Xenakis, there is always undergirding driving things along to new places; here I noticed my lack of interest based on what sounded like sloppy Composition. And you?

The new erato

Quote from: snyprrr on July 31, 2012, 08:18:06 PM
alarm clock (strawberry?, I wonder...)
I like that reference.....I'll go fetch my peppermints.

I know to little of Penderecki, listenes to some of his works in the 70ies/80ies, but little since.

eyeresist

Quote from: James on July 31, 2012, 02:27:15 PMThis is their 2nd box .. symphonies & other orchestral works ..

[asin]B008DWG0CY[/asin]

Ah, good. I wasn't impressed by the long choral works, compared to the instrumental works I know from the EMI discs. I require a bit more structural unity...

MDL

#238


So who else has heard this? OK, the first two items, Hymne an den heiligen Adalbert and Song of the Cherubim, are pleasant, if slightly anonymous, and I haven't fully got my head around Strophen yet, but I'd been desperate to hear new recordings of the main pieces, and wasn't disappointed.

Canticum Canticorum Salomonis

This little-heard gem is one of Penderecki's finest works. The composer's EMI recording is probably unbeatable in capturing the languid, sensual swoon of the choral writing, but the frequent explosions of tuned metallic percussion err towards distortion in the otherwise brilliantly engineered recording, which still sounds amazing almost 40 years on. In the new Naxos recording, the percussion is less aggressive and more alluring, and Wit's chorus provide a fascinating, quite different take on work's the complex, shifting textures.

Kosmogonia

OK, there is almost nothing in this piece that Penderecki hadn't done in Dies Irae, Utrenja and The Devils, but I still love it. It's a compendium of his finest orchestral and choral effects without the "serious" bits in between. The new recording is extremely impressive, as good as the old Markowski (and it's not often that new performances match the intensity of Markowski's); I was surprised to hear the quiet organ noodling that accompanies the choir's final upwards glissando that I hadn't noticed on the earlier recording.

A stunning release; one of the best in the Naxos Penderecki series. Now, let's hear the Magnificat. And... The Devils of Loudun?

lescamil

I have that disk and it just follows a pattern that many other Penderecki disks have been following. Once again, the early Penderecki works steal the show. The works composed after 1975 or so always seem to sound rather innocuous and nice, but never really make an impact. One notable exception is the Te Deum from an earlier release. With his early works, it is nice to get a modern recording of these two. I only had Kosmogonia on an old LP, and I always appreciate hearing what Antoni Wit has to do with this. I still like those early, scratchy recordings with Penderecki, Markowski, Czyz, etc conducting, but a modern recording of an early classic should never be passed up. I am eagerly waiting for when someone takes on The Devils of Loudon.
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