Customer Reviews

Gorecki: Beatus Vir, Op. 38 / Totus Tuus, Op. 60 / Old Polish Music, Op. 24

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If Maestro John Nelson did not exist, he would have to be invented as a matter of the highest artistic urgency. How else would the rest of us become acquainted with the new or little-known music that is so often recorded under his baton?

Take, for example, the Polish composer Henry Mikolaj Gorecki's 'Beatus Vir', 'Totus Tuus', and Old Polish Music. The first of these are newer creations of a very Catholic Poland, redolent of biblical and Roman Catholic piety embedded in the brooding harmonies of Old Poland.

Nelson allows the brooding to occur with a capital 'B' in what is simply profoundly gorgeous music. Gorecki excels at easing out of repetition all the transcendent meaning that it contains, aided in this task by Nikita Storojev's canyon-esque bass. Under Nelson's command, both orchestra and choir swell at just the right Slavic moments. Simply put, this is jaw-dropping music meant to be listened to at considerable volume.

Old Polish Music is a stirring surprise, in part because there is so little old about it. Old themes are reworked substantially and set to, among other things, some startling writing for brass.

This reviewer is rarely stopped dead in his tracks by the sheer awesome beauty of a little-known work. The three Gorecki creations on this disk all do the stopping.

It would be impossible to exaggerate the loss to the Western canon that was absorbed in having tarried so long in making Gorecki's acquaintance, nor the joy of the feast now that the fast has been broken.

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John Nelson and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Philharmonic Choir with bass-baritone Nikita Storojew have recorded the Górecki 'Beatus Vir' a work based on the Psalms dedicated to Holy Father John Paul II in 1979. It remains a work of great majesty and power despite the 'condensed' music form employed. It is a powerful opening to this three part recording that continues with 'Totus Tuus' ('Totally Yours') written in 1987 for unaccompanied mixed choir. The libretto was taken from a poem written by contemporary writer Maria Boguslawska which is addressed to the Virgin Mary, the patron saint of Poland. Górecki composed the piece to celebrate Pope John Paul II's third pilgrimage to his native Poland that summer, and the work remains his best-known, if not critically acclaimed, a cappella choral piece of the 1980s. The work was first performed in on June 14, 1987 at a High Mass held in Victory Square, Warsaw by the Choir of the Warsaw Academy of Catholic Theology.

Górecki has a manner in writing for the voice that demands respect. His choral writing is dense and succeeds in reaching high spiritual realms with the least amount of change in the spectrum of writing. Likewise his writing for the solo voice as part of the orchestral or choral fabric is restrained and all the more deeply moving because of it. Example: the Los Angeles Philharmonic as conducted by Gustavo Dudamel are currently performing the Symphony No. 3, 'of sorrowful songs' with the radiant Jessica Rivera as soloist. She is placed in the center of the darkened orchestra, seemingly as simply another instrumentalist until she stands and sings the heartrending poetry of the symphony. The effect is breathtaking and reminds us once again of the importance of the recently deceased Henryk Górecki in the history of music.

This recording closes with the far too rarely performed 'Old Polish Music' which is written for strings and brass. It is exuberant and celebratory and allows us to hear purely orchestral music form this great polish master. Grady Harp, May 11