K. Penderecki - Sym No 7 / Seven Gates of Jerusalem - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

W. Lutoslawski - Orchestral Works 7 [COMPACT DISCS] date 11/20/2001

Penderecki's Eighth Symphony, which receives it's world premiere recording here, is a setting of Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century German poems entitled Lieder der Verganglichkeit.

The range of Penderecki's music is exemplified by this disc, which presents five works written over a period of nearly 40 years. Hymne an den heiligen Adalbert was composed in 1997 and evokes the martyred eighth-century Bishop of Prague through spare but fervent gestures. More austere, but intense in it's focus, is Song of the Cherubim, whilst Canticum Canticorum Salomis is a richly sensuous exploration of the Song of Songs. Kosmogonia explores a complex sound tapestry. Strophen (1959) was a breakthrough work - spare, intricate and marvelously tensile. In 2002 Antoni Wit became managing and artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. He has received six GRAMMY nominations for Penderecki's St Luke Passion in 2004 (8.557149), a Polish Requiem in 2005 (8.557386-87), Seven Gates of Jerusalem in 2007 (8.557766), Utrenja in 2009 (8.572031) and Karol Szymanowski's Stabat Mater in 2008 (8.570724) and Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4 in 2009 (8.570722).