More excellent music-making from Warsaw

From June 24, 2015:

Thirty-five years separate the first work on this new Naxos disc, the Magnificat from the mid-1970s, and the 2009 Kadisz. During that time Penderecki made a major stylistic shift, from an avant-garde international style to a more emotional and personal tonal one. But both works share some typical Pendereckian traits: an intense expressionism and a focus on instrumental and vocal colour.

Antoni Wit has put together an impressive string of CDs for Naxos in the past few years, conducting the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Philharmonic Choir. Here is another. His soloists have character-filled voices, full of emotion but always musical. In the Magnificat Penderecki makes effective use of a choir of boys’ voices, and the Warsaw Boys’ Choir are excellent in this recording. Incidentally, it’s been interesting to hear how much children’s choirs can add to a work with a choral element. Just in the past month I’ve reviewed discs by Villa-Lobos and Honegger that also make good use of the special colour and extra-musical connotations of children’s voices.

We have Naxos to thank for their support for Wit the conductor, as he continues the great tradition of musical excellence in Poland. Keep ‘em coming!

An outstanding Dvorak Requiem

From February 4, 2015:

Dvorak’s Requiem is a big work full of amazing tunes, awesome effects of instrumentation, choral and solo voice writing, and emotional peaks. Written for an English audience more familiar with oratorios than opera, it doesn’t have the same dramatic logic of that other great 19th century Requiem, Verdi’s. What’s needed in a great recording of Dvorak’s work is a well-matched set of soloists with musicianship at least matching their strong voices, a very good orchestra and an outstanding choir. But above all one needs a conductor with a vision of the work as a whole, and the ability to keep the fire lit under everyone in its not infrequent valleys as well as its peaks. Antoni Wit has the experience, the background, and the intimate knowledge of his forces to do just that. This is a recording to match his best, such as his Grammy winning Penderecki disc, or (since Wit is about much more than Polish music) his amazing Mahler 8th Symphony. Back in 2011 Wit mentioned in an interview that Naxos wanted him to record all of Dvorak’s choral music. I hope that happens, and that he can continue the excellent work begun with the Requiem, with his Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir.