Customer Reviews

Krzysztof Penderecki: St Luke Passion

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Krzystof Penderecki has become one of my favorite composers ever since I listened to some of his most radical works, including the "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima", the two "De Natura de Sonoris", and the "St. Luke Passion", his musical depiction of the last hours of Christ.

This is one of the most graphic, most intense pieces of music the world has to witness. The work is divided in two parts. In Part I, The ominous introduction, with the chorus singing "Hail the Cross", already invites doom. Christ's prayer on Mt. Olives begins somberly, but leads to a teffifying climax as the chorus sings "I am crying", before dying down to near silence. In the capture scene, once can vision the approaching Roman legion, with a series of nasty brass sounds and stampede of percussion. The mocking of Jesus is equally violent, as the entire orchestra and chorus seems to laugh at Him. Sinister monophonic notes rip the air as the chorus shouts "Crucify Him!"

Part II begins with Christ's carrying of the cross. The cruficixion scene features one of the most excrutiating tone clusters the chorus ever produced, as overwhelming as the pain Jesus witnessed with pins hammered to His hands and feet. In the "Stabat Mater", when the Virgin Mary watches her dying Son, the music becomes relatively calm, but the avant-garde sound is still prevalent. The music becomes violent again when Christ utter his last words, before the music dies away, along with Christ's spirit. The concluding call for redemption begins dark, but ends in a glorious major chord, unachieved within the previous 75 minutes.

Penderecki's rendition of Christ's last hours is as shocking, disturbing, and powerful as the controversial Mel Gibson movie. A music like this should have a "Parental Advisory" label (and I am being a little sarcastic).

Although he has returned to a neo-romantic compositional style, Kryzstof Penderecki (b. 1933) first became known as an avant-guarde modernist composer. His monumental "St. Luke Passion", first performed in 1966, has become, in its intensity and emotionality, one of the few overtly modernistic compositions to attract a wide audience. This work is heavily indebted to the passion music of Bach but in a style that is uniquely modern. Penderecki uses the letters of Bach's name, B-A-C-H, as the basis for many of the tone rows in the work.

The St Luke Passion is scored for a massive orchestra, including a large percussion section, chorus and boys chorus, soprano, baritone, and bass soloists, and an Evangelist. The work sets texts from the Gospel of St. Luke as well as from other biblical and liturgical sources.

The St. Luke Passion reflects the composer's own devout faith, but one does not need to be a believer to respond to this score. The music is almost entirely atonal. At only two points, at the end of the piece and it the conclusion of the climactic "stabat mater" does Penderecki resolve the music into a chord in the major key. Virtually the entire work is sad and somber. Within its frame, their is a great diversity of music. Penderecki uses the form of ancient chants, in the chorus singing a capella in hushed tones. In portions of the work, such as the scene before Pilate (track no 13) or the scene where Jesus is mocked on the cross (track no 22) the chorus hisses and shouts in a strong cacophony of sound. The soloists have moments of almost mystical intensity. And the spoken part of the Evangelist alternates effectively with the choral and solo passages. The music makes frequent use of a gong, which reminded me of the extensive use of that instrument in the more accessible music of the American composer, Alan Hovhaness.

This recording of the St Luke Passion dates from 2004 and received a deserved rating of 10/10 on Classics Today. Antoni Wit conducts the Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra and the Warsaw Boys Choir. The recording is part of a continuing series of Penderecki's major works on the budget-priced Naxos label. It makes a compelling case for this passionate music. The CD includes detailed liner notes and the complete Latin text and translation of the Passion. Izabella Klosinaska is especially impressive in her soprano solos.

The St Luke Passion opens with an expansive prayer, set for organ, orchestra and large chorus. It follows, in Part I with a series of recitifs, solos, and choruses of the events leading to the arrest of Jesus. The admonition "Jerusalem, Jerusalem turn again to thy God" is repeated twice, the first time for chorus the second time for soprano solo.

The second and longer portion of the work describes the Crucifiction in anguished music with frenetic writing for the chorus. The climactic moments of the work include the long chorus "Popule meus" (track 16), the "Stabat mater" (track 24) which incorporates Penderecki's setting of this text in 1962, and the final chorus (track 27) which ends in the major key with the words Into thy hands I commend my spirit/ for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth."

The St. Luke Passion is difficult music with an emotional force that cannot be denied. Listeners who are willing to see that modernistic music can have an almost visceral appeal will love this music of passion and religious devotion.

Total Time: 76:24

Robin Friedman

We are used to the brilliance of Bach and his music, but this is one from the country over and a few centuries in the future. Penderecki offers us great choral music and Naxos a great recording. If you like the clips, then you will enjoy the entire piece of music.

I learned about his music from a Frank Zappa interview, since he feels Penderecki was doing interesting things that were current. This piece is a prime example.

Penderecki is able to merge the traditional form of religious chant and choral work with modern orchestration techniques, and it works out wonderfully. The sound, choral work, orchestration, and production are all wonderful on this disk.

This is probably one of Naxos' finer offerings (really, the poor Naxos discs are much more the exception than the rule...my own feeling is that you can't really go wrong with Naxos.)

I pretty much can listen to almost every sort of classical music, from the classical and romantic eras (R. Strauss, Beethoven, Wagner, Berlioz, Rachmaninov, Elgar, etc.) to the 20th century and the present day (Stravinsky, Messiaen, Respighi, Holst, Lauridsen, Glass, etc.). I listen to only one composer from the Baroque period, and that's J.S. Bach (Baroque isn't very interesting to me, anyways). While the music of the Classical Period are absolutely and extraordinarily timeless, I'm more for the music of the Romantic/20th century. Respighi, Sibelius, Debussy, Bruckner, Tavener, and many others have created such extravagant works (like "La Mer" and "The Firebird"). They're also more diverse than anywhere else (Stravinsky with his neo-classical forms, Debussy with his impressionistic orchestrations, Schoenberg with his 12-tone serialism, etc). As the maestro Michael Tilson Thomas once said, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven can never be conquered, as they are legendary and unmatched. That I can understand fully, but the later composers I still prefer. And now, here's yet another 20th-century composer that's part of my CD collection . . .

The first time I've heard music from Polish-born composer Krzysztof Penderecki was from the Kubrick horror classic, The Shining. It grew on me, and I just had to hear more from him. So I bought the St. Luke Passion on Amazon (actually from Newbury Comics, an Amazon seller, but anyway), played the CD, and 76 minutes later, I was completely hooked. This is not gentle Mozart-like music. This is more in the likes of Ligeti's "Atmospheres" and "Requiem." This is a very powerful work that requires a very large orchestra and a very professional choir. These two requirements are due to the fact that St. Luke Passion is full of raw emotion and power.

Penderecki is a very religious man, and his strongest beliefs are expressed here. St. Luke Passion tells of the mockings against Christ as he is about to be crucified. We all know how disturbing his death is described in the Bible. Well, just imagine how it is expressed through music: Penderecki has created some of the most violent (and some of the eeriest) music that's ever been heard in the 20th-Century. Full of harsh strings and percussion, loud woodwinds and brass, and ghostly choral techniques, this is a large-scale work that probably shouldn't be played with the lights turned off.

Upon listening to it, you can tell that this is certainly very hard to perform. Perhaps that's why it's rarely recorded. In this particular 2002 recording, however, Antoni Wit and the Polish forces have covercome this sort of challenge by playing it almost perfectly. Everything is set off without a hitch. The strings have that right amount of madness that's required, while the brass and woodwinds manage to achieve the nightmarish requirements with the fewest mistakes. The Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir and the Warsaw Boys Choir have done an excellent job: they were able to pull it off by becoming Penderecki experts. Wit, especially, knows the score very well. He is able to bring out the fullest qualities that are needed for this sort of work. Credit should be given to him and his forces for performing this complicated choral work.

Naxos has released a series of Penderecki works, and continues to release more to this day. I'm looking forward to all of them, as Penderecki has quickly become one of my favorite 20th-century composers.

Grade: A+

This is one of the more moving pieces of music I've heard in a long time, especially when I follow along with the English translation of the Latin text; Penderecki's love for the Savior, and his emotional outworking of the most awful and beautiful event in the history of this universe is in the same league with ""Messiah".

The use of the boys' choir is the final piece to the puzzle, of what is an almost perfectly constructed and performed work. (I have found that "Messiah" performed with a boys' choir instead of sopranos is a marvelous improvement too.)

I must admit I got this Wit version of Penderecki's St. Luke Passion on a whim and not any fore thought about the work or performance. Now it is one of my favorite contemporary pieces and the performance is even better than one I obtained conducted by Penderecki himself!

If you don't know anything about this work excerpts of it were used in the famous horror movie "The Shining." If it wasn't for the fact that Penderecki is a devout Catholic I swear that this work is Satanic. It probably would be great music for Halloween. Those who are used to 19th century classical music might get there ears singed from this piece.

Enough about the piece. This performance is played and sung very well to the best of my understanding. What I mean by that is that is sung in a language other than English which I don't understand and to the best of my knowledge just on the sound of the voice is very good. Orchestrally I don't think I've heard better. The Poles seem to have great orchestras even in the smallest places. This being the Warsaw Philharmonic... they have no problem at all. Wit is great interpreter of Penderecki. If this piece interests you after you get it and you want to try something purely for orchestra may I suggest Wit's rendition of the 3rd symphony of Penderecki. All in all no reservations about this piece or performance five stars all the way around. Before I end I should say the Naxos sound is very well engineered also.

This work doesn't seem to get performed or recorded that often, probably because:

1. Like many atonal (or mostly so) 20th-century pieces they are difficult to perform. Thus, getting a performance together is a task.

2. Difficult to listen to... lacking easy popular appeal. Many people would, for example, rather be listening to Mozart if classical music at all.

Bad combination. But I think it is a worthy work. I'm not sure if it's hard to *understand* as much as it is not pleasing to listen to. (If you're looking for a melody, you are in the wrong place!) But some of the musical writing mirrors the sound of spoken words (and in fact there is some spoken text) and other sound effects, so some of it is intuitive enough. The "difficult" harmonies contribute to the dramatic power of the work (like Britten's War Requiem).

Also, there is the historical backdrop to this work--the horrors of WWII that caused some to turn their back on faith. Against this Penderecki has the gall to present a work of faith. And it's an inspired choice, because instead of depicting the horrors of war (as several 20th century composers have done, incl. Penderecki himself), he depicts the horrors of Christ's suffering. This is appropriate because the suffering of Jesus for our redemption is a major component of the Christian answer to the problem of evil in this world.

This music is one of the best choral works of all time. Every time you hear "Pater" from Jesus, the feelings of hope/tragedy scream through your heart. I was involved in the world premier of this work and it is as great today as it was in the 1960's. The orchestration and voices create incredible sounds for each section of the period between the betrayal of Judas to the Ascension. My daughter, a violinist, calls it truely "scary". Give it a listen.

Panderecki's passion is a very expressive and intense piece of music, comparable tot Bach's Matthew Passion. The Stabat Mater in the centre is touching.