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Krzysztof
PENDERECKI (b.1933) Works for Cellos and Orchestra
Concerto Grosso No.1 for 3 Cellos and Orchestra (2000) [35:28]
Largo for Cello and Orchestra (2003) [27:29]
Sonata for Cello and Orchestra (1964) [11:11]
Ivan Monighetti (Concerto, Largo);
Arto Noras (Concerto, Sonata); Rafał Kwiatkowski
(Concerto) (cellos)
Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra/Antoni Wit
rec. Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, Poland, 18-21 February
2007. DDD. NAXOS
8.570509 [74:08]
If, like me, you think
of Penderecki, especially in his more recent compositions,
as the acceptable face of the avant-garde, even as a bit
of an old romantic at heart, you’ll enjoy most of his music
on this recording.
For those who are as yet
unacquainted with Penderecki, or have heard that he’s a
bit of a tough nut to crack, I don’t wish to lead you to
expect some kind of easy-listening experience, but you
should find the music worth the effort. And if you like
what you hear, you can move on to the other Naxos recordings
directed by Antoni Wit, advertised on the tray insert. The
most recent of these, the Te Deum, was reviewed
by Robert Hugill in January, 2008. (8.557980 – see review with
a link to a second review by Dan Morgan).
The very title of Concerto
Grosso No.1 indicates a conscious harking back on
Penderecki’s part to pre-classical models. In fact,
the music which springs most readily to mind is not the
baroque concerto, so much as Bartók’s Concerto for
Orchestra; it may not be in quite that class, but
it’s music with a ready appeal without being in any way
facile. I’ve seen the work described as formulaic and
over-extended, but I don’t share those feelings. Pitting
three cellos against the orchestra may seem like overkill
and it’s certainly hard to distinguish the three instruments
separately or to appreciate what the notes describe as
Penderecki’s full use of the interplay between them and
the orchestra – the recording is good, though a little
too thick-textured, up-close and personal for my liking – but
I enjoyed both the music and the performance. The rhapsodic
finale (track 6) makes a first-rate impression.
The Largo for Cello
and Orchestra of 2003 is actually a three-movement
concerto, one of Rostropovich’s last commissions; he
gave the première performance in 2005. Ironically, though
two of the movements are marked Adagio, none is
actually a Largo. It says what it has to say
more concisely than the Concerto Grosso, and is
all the better for that; some listeners will consider
its inclusion the major attraction of the new recording. It’s
certainly a more challenging work, especially the impassioned
central sections of the Andante con moto second
movement (tr.8) and the Adagio finale (tr.9),
but it is well worth the effort. If you can cope with
Shostakovich, especially his second and more enigmatic
Cello Concerto, you should be able to take this music
in your stride.
The Cello Sonata of
1964 is a short and comparatively lightweight piece, though
scored for a large orchestra, with a battery of percussion. It
consists of two movements without tempo indications, neither
of which seems to me quite as playful as the notes claim. I
have to admit that I found it rather pointless, too experimental
and posturing for my liking and, therefore, the least enjoyable
item on the disc. Just to show how unpredictable a thing
the appreciation of music can be, as I close this review
I’ve just read another review of this CD which claims the
Cello Sonata as the most impressive work of the three!
Apart from Arto Noras,
who is especially effective in the Largo, I hadn’t
encountered any of the cello soloists before but they and
the orchestra give good accounts of themselves under the
safe guidance of Antoni Wit, whose presence in this music
is almost a guarantee of quality.
None of these works is
claimed as receiving its première recording, but I haven’t
been able to track down any other versions in the current
catalogue.
The notes, by Richard
Whitehouse, are brief but to the point. The recording,
as I have indicated in the Concerto Grosso, is a
little too close and resonant throughout, with the soloists
particularly forward, but perfectly acceptable. The cover
art, as usual with Naxos, is very apt.
You might not choose this
as your favourite late-night listening – it’s perhaps a
little too unsettling for that – but the new recording
represents a welcome addition to Naxos’s already valuable
repertoire of Penderecki’s music.
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