Krzysztof Penderecki is a composer with two lives: one, the creator of radical, challenging, fiercely avant-garde orchestral works including the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1961) and Fluorescences (1962); two, the composer of devotional religious music, frequently reduced choral settings, particularly prevalent after the Stabat Mater of 1966. The former music allied him with fellow Eastern European modernists Ligeti and Lutoslawski, appeared in the visionary films of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, and no doubt led to his recent interview in techno website Resident Advisor. Later works reject the overt political stance and explosive sound worlds in favour of tonal simplicity, no doubt leading to wider popular appeal but losing the excitement and violence of those earlier pieces. However as this disc demonstrates, the two worlds aren’t as distinct as they may at first seem.
Credo of 1998 explores a section of the liturgical Mass to investigate the composer’s own spiritual beliefs, developing a series of ideas over a number of distinct yet related sections. There is none of Arvo Part’s austerity; Credo works in bold, brash colours, big choral and orchestral gestures daubed on with vigour. The introduction is immediately gripping, massed voices loudly singing over droning organ and large blocks of symphonic sound. Elsewhere blasts of brass evoke particularly violent angels, slowing to the bucolic calm of the penultimate movement before concluding with hammered percussion and rousing chorus. The Cantata of 1964 finds Penderecki exploring the idiom with more open ears. Dedicated to the founding and survival of the Jagellonian University near Krakow, threatened with destruction by the Nazis, Penderecki here utilises a range of sonic means – glissandi, tone clusters, percussion salvos, silence – arranged in jagged contrast, to depict the School’s endurance. It’s a thrilling piece, the stand-out on this impressive snap-shot survey.
Joshua Meggitt
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