Juliusz Łuciuk (1927-2020)
Vesperae In Assumptione Beatae Mariae Virginis (1987-1989/2005)
Kacper Jaskulak, Jakub Kiciński, Gregorz Rogut (tenors), Michał Gębala, Jacek Kobylink (basses)
Collegium Cantorum of the Częstochowa Philharmonic/Janusz Siadlak
rec. 2021
Notes in Polish and English. No sung texts or translations provided.
First recording
DUX 1795 [52]
Although I cannot claim to be any kind of expert on the music of Juliusz Łuciuk, I have heard (often courtesy of friends in Poland) some of his work, including his ballet music Medea (Acte Préalable AP 0147), Gesang am Brunnen (Acte Préalable AP 0240) and a selection of his Choral Works (Dux 1473), as well as some shorter works on anthology discs. A lot of what I have heard I found intriguing, especially his sacred music. I was therefore keen to hear this disc – and it hasn’t disappointed me.
A little background seems in order, since Łuciuk appears to be little known in the English-speaking world. He was born in January 1927 and died in October 2020. His father was an organist and pianist in Częstochowa; the young Juliusz’s obvious love of music was warmly encouraged by his parents (as a child he loved, especially, the sound of the organ and choral music) and he began his musical education under his father’s tutelage. In the late 1940s/early 1950s he studied composition and music theory at what was then the State Higher School of Music in Kraków (it is now the Kryztof Penderecki Academy of Music); concurrently, he studied musicology at Kraków’s Jagellonian University, while also studying piano and organ. In 1958/9 he studied in Paris, with Max Deutsch and Nadia Boulanger and also attended seminars with Messiaen. In 1959 he attended the International Course for Composers in Darmstadt.
As he began to make his way as a composer in the 1960s, Łuciuk was fascinated by many of the devices of the international avant-garde. This is evident in works such as Niobe (1962), a ballet described as “a pantomime in 1 act for mixed choir and symphony orchestra”, which uses unconventional notation, Lirica di Timbri (1963) and Pacem in Terris (1964) for female voice and prepared piano. By the early 1970s, Łuciuk was becoming disenchanted with the contemporary avant-garde. In a statement made in 1976, Łuciuk declared “Music ... cannot be severed from tradition. And most avant-garde composers have completely repudiated the past. It has begun to get on my nerves” (‘Colours of Music’, Dzienik Polski, December 11, 2004).
As such a statement might lead one to expect, in the 1970s Łuciuk turned away from the idioms of the International Avant-Garde, to write music much more firmly grounded in Polish musical traditions. I use the plural noun consciously, bearing in mind what Piotr Grellu-Moźejko says in his essay ‘Fifty Years of Freedom: Polish Music After 1945’ (Canadian Slavonic Papers, 33:1-2 (1997), pp. 181-208) where he writes (pp.181-2) of Poland’s “lively and rich tradition of art music making …from various Arab, Byzantine, Czech and German sources this tradition has been uninterrupted for over nine hundred years. Its richness as well as its continuity have had no small impact on the creative, national, moral and spiritual consciousness of Polish composers during the twentieth century, and especially during its second half”. To which one should add what the same author says elsewhere (p.183) in the same essay: “On the ideological level, the almost total supremacy of the Catholic Church played an obvious role in the struggle against ideas considered to be totally foreign to the essence of Polish cultural consciousness”.
From the mid-1970s onwards, Łuciuk’s work was very firmly rooted (I do not use the organic metaphor casually) in the soil of the Polish musical tradition in general and of Polish sacred music in particular. Łuciuk composed a remarkable series of sacred works, of which the one under review is a significant highlight. Such works included – I have not listed works for organ – Missa gratiarum actione (1974), Franciszek z Asyżu/ Francis of Assisi (1976), Hymnus de Sancto Norberto (1982), Litania polska/ Polish Litany (1984), Modlitwa do Świętego Jana Kantego/ A Prayer to St. Jan Kanty (1990), Magnificat (1990), Msza polska/ Polish Mass (1993), Gesang am Brunnen (1996), Hymn uwielbienia / Hymn of Adoration (1996), Sanctus adalbertus flos purpureus (1997), Litania do Matki Bożej Supraślskiej/Litany to Virgin Mary of Supraśl (1998-9), Chrystus Pantokrator/ Christ Pantocrator (2000), O Świętej Klarze z Asyżu/ On Saint Klara of Assisi (2004) and Boży Św. Rafał Kalinowski - Pielgrzym Boży / Saint Rafał Kalinowski – Lord’s Pilgrim (2007) – this list makes no attempt to be exhaustive.
Łuciuk’s Vesperae In Assumptione Beatae Mariae Virginis was originally composed, in a version for male choir only, in 1987-89. The version recorded here, for mixed-voice choir, though with the choral antiphons still sung by a male choir, was prepared in 2005. The booklet essay which accompanies the present CD, by the Polish conductor Janusz Siadlak, quotes Łuciuk’s own words: “I composed Vespers for the Assumption of the Virgin Mary for male choir. The world premiere took place in the year of completing the composition in Aachen, in the Cathedral of Charlemagne … It was a unique, mystical-medieval atmosphere for the composition performed, drawing on melodic and textual elements from the medieval Vespers. The piece was performed by the Schola Cantorum of St. Foillan [based in Aachen], conducted by Willi Eschweiler, for whom I expressly wrote the work”. The second version, for mixed choir, was written in 2005, and premiered in 2006 at the ‘Gaude Mater’ International Festival of Sacred Music in Częstochowa (the city in which Łuciuk was brought up, which has sometimes been described as the ‘spiritual capital’ of Poland, home as it is to the Pauline monastery of Jasna Góra with its famous icon known as the Black Madonna). The premiere was given by the Schola Cantorum Gedanensis, conducted by Jan Łukszewski.
I find Łuciuk’s Vesperae In Assumptione Beatae Mariae Virginis a very well-made, imaginative and spiritually profound work, and these feelings about it have deepened each time I have listened to it. The performers on this CD are top-class, sounding both fully committed and assured. The recording was made in the Church of Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd in Wierzchowisku, a village a few miles north of Częstochowa and the recorded sound is atmospheric but never so resonant that it obfuscates the details of Łuciuk’s music.
If, like me, you have little or no Polish please do not let that discourage you from investigating this excellent disc. The helpful booklet notes by Janusz Siadlak are given in both the original Polish and an English translation. True, there are no sung texts, or translations thereof. However, it should be realised that the texts are in Latin and that the track list provided identifies each relevant text by its opening words. Łuciuk’s Vespers resembles, in structure, but not, of course, stylistically, a more familiar work such as Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine insofar as it makes use of a number of the same psalms. Each section, as in Monteverdi, is made up of a choral antiphon, a psalm invocation, a psalm and a polyphonic antiphon. The list of individual tracks gives such identifications as ‘Assumpta est Maria’ (track 1), ‘Dixit Dominus’ (2-3), ‘Laudate pueri’ (6-7), ‘Maria Virgo’ (8), ‘Laetatus Sum’ (10-11), ‘Nisi Dominus’ (14-15) and ‘Pulchra es’ (20). So, even in the absence of texts and translations the listener can follow things pretty easily, through reference to the texts provided in the booklets accompanying other recordings on his/her shelves, or some very simple internet searches; both make it straightforward to access the texts used by Łuciuk. There is further assistance in the fact that the CD’s track listing translates basic terms like Antyfona chorała (Choral Antiphon) and Inwokaja psalmu (Psalm Invocation).
Throughout his Vesperae In Assumptione Beatae Mariae Virginis, Juliusz Łuciuk’s writing is never less than adroit and assured but, naturally, there are places where his creative inspiration is particularly high, perhaps because he had a personal affinity with the particular text being set? The opening setting of ‘Assumpta est Maria’ – the offertory for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15th) – is full of subtle beauty and delightful phrasing, notably at the words “Maria virgo assumpta est ad aethereum thalamum” (The Virgin Mary is taken up into the chamber of Heaven). Other ‘highlights’ – though I feel more than a little guilty in thinking of this serious and lengthy work in this somewhat trivializing fashion – include the Antiphon ‘Maria Virgo’, which is a miracle of remarkable, quiet power and the setting of ‘Nisi Dominus’ (Psalm 127) which is harmonically striking and blends low and high voices to great effect. All five soloists acquit themselves well; I particularly enjoyed the work of the rich-toned bass Jacek Kobylink on track 18 (the Psalm Invocation – Lauda Jerusalem) and the sweetly lyrical tenor of Jakub Kiciński (track 10 – the ‘invocation’ to ‘Laetatus sum’).
However, the disc deserves to be judged entire – and anyone who has made it this far through my review will know that my judgement is a very favourable one. The Collegium Cantorum Choir of the Częstochowa Philharmonic sings with impressive technical competence, but also in a manner which sounds like a collective expression of genuine faith, something beyond the reach of many choirs of equal technical competence.
Glyn Pursglove
