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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Contemporary Classic of Profound Significance, 25 Nov 2003
This is tremendous performance of a momentous composition. Penerecki’s St Luke Passion is a vast work in a contemporary style that seems to be enduring well the test of time. It makes a profound impact on the listener. Leaving a sense of wonder, hope and thankfulness for the momentous events it describes and expounds.Like the great Passions of Bach, Penderecki follows the moments of human salvation culminating in the death of Christ as recorded in the Gospels. And like Bach, Penderecki pauses along the way to contemplate and meditate upon the Gospel texts. For these meditations he uses passages from the Old Testament (the Psalms and Jeremiah) and the Church’s Liturgy. From our Lord’s the agony in the Garden of Gethsemene we are taken through the events of his betrayal by Judas, his arrest, trial, mocking and crucifixion. Penderecki generates moments of genuine amazement and wonder (e.g. sections 1, 2, 20), dread and horror (the crowd’s enmity and mockings), and the absolute confidence of faith in this strange work of the God of Truth (e.g. sections 22, 23, 24). Penderecki uses a dark-toned voiced narrator as the Evangelist, an original and very effective idea (on this recording Krzysztof Kolberger is very fine, more animated but with a little less gravitas than his colleague in Henryk Czyz’s pioneering Cracow Philharmonia recording). Antoni Wit, student of both Penderecki and Czyz, conducts an altogether superb performance! (Though ‘performance’ seems not the right word for an event that is almost sacramental in its purpose and effect.) The demands made on the choir and soloists call for enormous reserves of flexibility and dramatic power. Their singing (and muttering, shouting and hissing!) is spine-chilling at times. The Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra play with palpable commitment. The percussion, brass and deep strings produce a shocking impact. Penderecki orchestrates with remarkable imagination and skill. No previous recorded performance has served Penerecki’s hugely demanding score so well. Wit is intimately familiar with this music. His reading is characterised by a versatility of rhythmical impact and articulation that allows the music to speak with more cohesion than is usually the case. He also generates overwhelming impact at crucial moments. The recording is exemplary for clarity, depth and atmosphere. Climaxes register with terrifying impact, with moments of whispering stillness also fully focused (e.g. the natural acoustic reverberations of ‘crucifige’ (crucify) at the end of part one). This has been a long-anticipated release. It is a remarkable triumph for all concerned. At less than a fiver it’s also embarrassingly cheap!
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~ Romuald Tesarowicz
~ Piotr Nowacki
~ Krzysztof Penderecki
~ Krzysztof Penderecki
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