Lutoslawski: Twenty Polish Christmas Carols; Lacrimosa; Five Songs

Olga Pasichnyk (Artist), Witold Lutoslawski (Artist), Antoni Wit (Artist), Jadwica Rappe (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 18, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos
• ASIN: B000B6N66S
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #166,399 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marvelous!, December 9, 2005

By 

W. Harwood "willyl" (Burlington, VT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lutoslawski: Twenty Polish Christmas Carols; Lacrimosa; Five Songs (Audio CD)

Marvelous production on all fronts. The carols themselves are the heart and soul of the Polish religous and Christmas spirit. The arrangements recast traditional and beloved kolendy in modern adaptations, reflecting Lutoslawski's ample skills as vocal and orchestral arranger. The notes give the background a newcomer to the genre needs, and those already familiar with the songs will learn more. The cover art is wonderful. The singing and orchestral accompaniment are beyond reproach. Downloading the lyrics, in Polish and English, will take 23 pages, but that's a small price to play to appreciate this examplary release. Wspaniale to all concerned. Buy it!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Odds and ends, but still glimpses of a fine composer at work, December 14, 2010

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lutoslawski: Twenty Polish Christmas Carols; Lacrimosa; Five Songs (Audio CD)

This Naxos disc, released in 2005, is something of an appendix to the label's long series of Witold Lutoslawski's orchestral works. The three pieces here are not major parts of the Polish composer's output, but Lutoslawski was nonetheless fond of them. Antoni Wit leads the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

NOTE! This is a classical music CD! It is not a general holiday album for people following Polish Christmas traditions, and the low average rating of this CD as I write this review is sadly due only to prior customers not researching what they are buying.

Now, in 1947, Lutoslawski made an arrangement for voice and piano of twenty classic Polish Christmas carols from various 19th century collections of carol melodies. In 1986 he arranged the work again for the much larger forces of soprano solo, female choir and orchestra, and this is the version we hear on this disc. While the first carol is presented in a fairly simple manner not far from its folkloric basis, the set quickly becomes more ambitious. The complex harmonization of the folk material is comparable to the composer's Concerto for Orchestra of the same era. Now, I feel that Lutoslawski's best music was the high modernism of approx. 1960-1980, and so the 20 Polish Christmas Carols don't really call me back, but we still have one of the 20th century's finest writers for orchestra at work here, and there's a wealth of instrumental detail to enjoy.

The 5 Songs on Poems by Kazimiera Illakowicz for 30 solo instruments (1956-57) represent a considerably more mature composer. Turning away from folk inspiration, Lutoslawski now pursued mid-century modernism and introduced his own brand of atonality through the use of 12-tone chords. Far from making his music grey and emotionless, the weird tone clusters mesh well with the expressive features of Illakowicz's poetry. The orchestration of what was originally a piano line is inventive. I love, for example, the use of harp over a woodwind drone in the first song, or the opposition of piano and celesta in the fourth song. Lutoslawski was to make even greater strides in his next work, "Funeral Music".

The disc also contains the "Lacrimosa" for mixed choir and orchestra (1937), the only surviving movement of a Requiem that Lutoslawski worked on in the mid-Thirties. It has the French touch of very early Lutoslawski, though considering it's less than four minutes long, it's essentially a choral fanfare and leaves little lasting impression.

The booklet doesn't contain the sung texts, but there's a link to a PDF on Naxos' site that contains the Polish original and English translation of the Carols, the Latin and English of the Lacrimosa and an English translation of the 5 Songs. Naxos doesn't provide the Polish text of the Illakowicz songs, I assume for copyright reasons.

Again, the music here is fine but very minor in Lutoslawski's total output. Furthermore, the disc is only 54 minutes long and Naxos could have packed another work or two in here, such as one of the fanfares hitherto left out of the label's Lutoslawski collection. Still, I'd recommend the entire Naxos series of Lutoslawski orchestral works to anyone who loves 20th century music, and as this disc here would be an economical further purchase, it's hard not to recommend it.

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent departure from the norm, August 31, 2011

By 

Andrew - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lutoslawski: Twenty Polish Christmas Carols; Lacrimosa; Five Songs (Audio CD)

While we do enjoy a vast treasury of Christmas carols in English, there are several other cultures which have their own traditions of carols - and the Poles are undoubtedly one of them. If you are a Polish American, you already know this because chances are that you have 2 or 3 albums of amateur-, church- or folk-sytle "Kolendy" (Polish Carols) from your grandma or aunt that you play during Christmas time each year. Lutos'awski's arrangements of these tunes, however, are far more complex, with beautiful and moody orchestral accompaniments, and wonderful alternations of melody singing between a women's chorus and a soprano.

If you are new to kolendy - consider this cycle a Polish version of Britten's Ceremony of Carols: each are a bit esoteric, but wonderful, and a reflection of the carol traditions of the cultures they come from.

For those who are interested in the actual titles of the songs, here they are, in order:

1. Anio' pasterzom mówi'

2. Hej, weselmy si'

3. Gdy si' Chrystus rodzi

4. Pó'noc ju' by'a

5. Bóg si' rodzi

6. Gdy 'liczna Panna

7. Przybie'eli do Betlejem

8. W ''obie le'y

9. Jezus malusie'ki

10. My te' pastuszkowie

11. Lulaj'e Jezuniu

12. Hej, w dzie' narodzenia

13. Jezu, 'liczny kwiecie

14. Hola hola, pasterze z pola

15. A có' z t' dziecin'

16. Hej hej, lelija Panna Maryja

17. Z narodzenia Pana

18. Pasterze mili

19. Dziecina ma'a

20. Naj'wi'tsza Panienka po 'wiecie chodzi'a

Tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 17 will be known by anyone familiar with kolendy, tracks 10 and 18 you may have heard before - and the rest you will probably never have heard before.