Track Listing

1. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Nachts
2. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Ende des Herbstes (1. Strophe)
3. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Bei einer Linde
4. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Flieder
5. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Fr�hlingsnacht
6. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Ende des Herbstes (2. Strophe)
7. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Sag' ich's euch, geliebte B�ume?
8. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Im Nebel
9. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Verg�nglichkeit
10. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Ende des Herbstes (3. Strophe)
11. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): Herbsttag
12. Symphony No. 8, for 3 voices, chorus & orchestra ('Lieder der Verg�nglichkeit'): O gr�ner Baum des Lebens
13. Dies Irae, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra: 1. Lamentatio
14. Dies Irae, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra: 2. Apocalypsis
15. Dies Irae, oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra: 3. Apotheosis
16. From the Psalms of David, for chorus, strings & percussion: 1. Psalm 28 (27)
17. From the Psalms of David, for chorus, strings & percussion: 2. Psalm 30 (29)
18. From the Psalms of David, for chorus, strings & percussion: 1. Psalm 43 (42)
19. From the Psalms of David, for chorus, strings & percussion: 1. Psalm 143 (142)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21344 in Music
• Released on: 2008-01-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

ClassicsToday.com, David Hurwitz, December 2008
10/10: Antoni Wit's Naxos recordings, particularly those of contemporary music, have been almost uniformly splendid, and this one is no exception. He summons terrific playing from the orchestra, has a brilliant and enthusiastic choir at his disposal, and has assembled a very impressive team of soloists, especially soprano Michaela Kaune, baritone Wojtek Drabowicz, and tenor Richard Minkiewicz. Singing this stuff isn't easy, but they make it seem so. The sonics capture the music's massive climaxes as well as its more ethereal moments in natural balance, and with plenty of head room. In short, this disc makes an ideal introduction to Penderecki's art, and to his vocal music in particular. It covers his entire creative life thus far, and offers compelling evidence of just how fine a composer he was, and remains.

Customer Reviews

Penderecki's Latest Triumph
Any new release by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki is cause for celebration, and this world premiere recording of his "Eighth Symphony," written in 2005, is no exception. It's a large-scale vocal work based on 19th and 20th Century poems by Goethe, Rilke and others that collectively address the cycle of birth, decay, death and rebirth from the perspective of man and his impact on the environment. As one might expect from such a big thematic canvas, the music embodies a dazzling range of textures and emotions. Those familiar with Penderecki's avant-garde works may, however, be surprised at how tonal and accessible this symphony is. At this stage of his life, Penderecki no longer seems as preoccupied with being in the vanguard of musical experimentation. While his music is still complex and challenging, it's assumed a sleeker, more romantic veneer that's seen to brilliant effect in this latest work. His new symphony is scored for soprano, mezzo-soprano and baritone voices, choir and orchestra, with the instrumentation playing a vital, but clearly supporting role to the vocals. It's like listening to a set of Lieder, only with larger and more complex musical accompaniment. The singers on this disc (members of the Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir) are profoundly engaged with the material and keenly in sync with the symphony's many moods. The 12 movements, most of them fairly short, are by turns contemplative, elegiac and mournful, yet never angry or despairing. Indeed, this is among Penderecki's most inspirational and uplifting works. Also on the disc is a new recording of "Dies Irae," Penderecki's 1967 musical response to the Holocaust. This is a much darker, more despairing work. It's also much more abstract, with otherworldly vocal effects and some orchestral dissonances. Voices and instruments are so well integrated as to be almost indistinguishable at times. Penderecki's brilliant synthesis makes for an unforgettable, deeply moving experience that both embraces and transcends his personal engagement with the subject matter. "Psalms of David" is an early vocal work (1958) for mixed choir, strings and percussion. The music is aggressive and challenging, and reveals Penderecki, then just 25, already manifesting impressive technical innovation and emotional commitment.

Penderecki on Naxos
The Polish composer Krzystof Penderecki (b. 1933) began his career as a modernist composer, but in the 1970s experienced a "return to Romanticism" as did some of his contemporaries. Penderecki has recently composed two large-scale choral symphonies: the lengthy Symphony no. 7, the "Seven Gates of Jerusalem", available on a separate Naxos CD, and the Symphony no. 8, which receives its first recording on this CD, composed in 2005. This music is performed by Antoni Wit conducting the Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir with soprano, mezzo-soprano and baritone soloists. In his recent review of the recording for Classics Today, David Hurwitz observes that Wit "summons terrific playing from the orchestra, has a brilliant and enthusiastic choir at his disposal, and has assembled a very impressive team of soloists." The CD is part of a cycle of Penderecki's large-scale works conducted by Wit for Naxos.

The symphony no. 8 called "Lieder der Verganglichkeit" or "Songs of Transience" is in 12 movements each of which sets a poem or stanza by a German romantic poet, including Eichendorff, Rilke, Karl Kraus, Hesse, Goethe, and Achim von Arnim. The poems sing of transience and change in human life and in nature. Many of the movements are elegaic and reflective. Penderecki makes full use of the orchestra to establish the mood of the poems, including extensive use of bells and lower brass, meditative solos for the flute (no. 2) oboe (no. 3), English horn (no. 5), and bass trumpet (nos. 10 and 12). The poems and music speak of the inevitability of change, both in the sense of loss and of isolation, but also in the sense of human renewal and aspiration. Declamatory passages for the soloists alternate with choral sections. In the lengthy final poem, "O Green Tree of Life" by von Arnim, the three soloists sing together, for the only moment in the work, in a hymn to the hope for immortality in the human heart as an antidote to the change and pain of life. This is the climactic moment of the symphony and gives it a distinctively religious cast. In his "Classics Today" review, Hurwitz described this symphony as "among Penderecki's finest recent creations" and stated that "I could easily see it becoming a repertory item." The symphony is a moving work which is immediately accessible.

This CD also includes two works from Penderecki's modernist period. The "Dies irae" dates from 1967 and was composed to commemorate the victims of Auschwitz. This work is in three movements and, in spite of its modernist character, is also of an immediate appeal. The work sets biblical texts together with portions of the Eumenides by Aeschylus in giving a musically apt portrayal of the horrors of the camps. The work includes soprano and bass soloists, but much of the power of the music derives from the chorus which alternatively declaims, screams, and whispers its anguish. The climax of the work occurs at the close of the second movement with shrieks from the orchestra, frezied singing, and the wail of a siren.

The final work on this CD, "From the Psalms of David" dates from 1958 and is in four brief movements. The work is in a modernist vein and it is characterized by intense and shifting rhythms which mirror the original Hebrew texts. The second movement is a moving, archaic contrapuntal setting for chorus alone.

Richard Whitehouse wrote informative performance notes for this CD. Unfortunately texts of the poems are not included, but the texts and translations for the symphony no. 8 and for the psalms are available on the Naxos website. This CD received a well-deserved rating of 10/10 in the Classics Today review I mentioned earlier. It constitutes an ideal introduction to Penderecki's music.

Robin Friedman

Early and recent works by Penderecki
Symphony #8 "Lieder Verganglichkeit" composed in 2005, and
recorded here for the first time, is a work very much in the
spirit of the late romantic German comporsers. In this work set
to poems of German poets, one can hear a bit of the style of
the Mahler symphonies and a bit of the early style of Schoenberg.
The Symphony # 8 is score for large orchestra, vocal soloists, and
a bass trumpet only heard in parts of the last movement(Yes, it sounds
like a trombone but it's not, it's a bass trumpet). This
recording also includes the Dies Irae composed in 1967, also for
orchestra, chorus and soloists (thou the orchestra part is written
for dissimilar forces in comparison to the 8th symphony)is what
we come to expect from the composer's religious works, and so is
his "Aus den Psalmen Davids". The Warsaw National Philharmonic under
Mr. Antoni Wit,who does a great, as so did the soloists and chorus as well.