Szymanowski: Stabat Mater, Op. 53, etc.

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The first impression here is that Rattle is relatively new to Szymanowski. There's a huge enthusiasm here, a missionary quality that bespeaks the recent convert. On the other hand the care over... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Catalogue No: 5551212
Label: Warner Classics
Length: 56 minutes

Gramophone Awards

1995

Winner - Choral
Gramophone Awards

1995

Winner - Engineering

Szymanowski: Stabat Mater, Op. 53

Work length23:17

$7.80

$10.20

Florence Quivar (mezzo-soprano), Elzbieta Szmytka (soprano), John Connell (bass)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Simon Halsey, City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus
Sir Simon Rattle
Recorded: 1993-01-01
Recording Venue: 3 & 4 April 1993, Symphony Hall, Birmingham

I. Stala Matka bolejaca (Stabat Mater dolorosa)

Track length6:11

$1.30

$1.70

II. I któz widzac tak cierpiaca (Quis est homo qui non fleret)

Track length2:25

$1.30

$1.70

III. O Matko, zródlo wszechmilosci (Eia Mater, fons amoris)

Track length3:51

$1.30

$1.70

IV. Spraw, niech placze z Toba razem (Fac me tecum pie flere)

Track length3:01

$1.30

$1.70

V. Panno slodka racz mozolem (Virgo virginum praeclare)

Track length2:53

$1.30

$1.70

VI. Chrystus niech mi bedzie grodem (Christe, cum sit hinc exire)

Track length4:56

$1.30

$1.70

Szymanowski: Litania do Marii Panny (Litany to the Virgin Mary), Op. 59

Work length8:02

$2.60

$3.40

Elzbieta Szmytka (soprano)
City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Simon Halsey
Sir Simon Rattle
Recorded: 1993-01-01
Recording Venue: 3 & 4 April 1993, Symphony Hall, Birmingham

I. Dwunastodzwieczna cytaro

Track length3:26

$1.30

$1.70

II. Jak krzak skarlaly

Track length4:36

$1.30

$1.70

Szymanowski: Symphony No. 3 'The Song of the Night', Op. 27

Work length24:41

$3.90

$5.10

Jon Garrison (vocals), Peter Thomas (violin)
City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle
Recorded: 1993-01-01
Recording Venue: 1 & 2 October 1993, Symphony Hall, Birmingham

I. Moderato assai (O, nie spij, druhu, nocy tej!) -

Track length7:41

$1.30

$1.70

II. Vivace, scherzando

Track length7:14

$1.30

$1.70

III. Largo (Jak cicho. Inni spia...)

Track length9:46

$1.30

$1.70

Reviews
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Reviews

2010

The first impression here is that Rattle is relatively new to Szymanowski. There's a huge enthusiasm here, a missionary quality that bespeaks the recent convert. On the other hand the care over matters of balance, the knowledge of just those points where Szymanowski's complexity needs very careful handling if it isn't simply to blur into opacity, suggest a conductor who has been there before and knows the dangers. You get the feeling that a conscious decision was made to delay recording this music until the circumstances were right.
The CBSO Chorus sound thoroughly at home not only in the music but in the language too. In Elzbieta Szmytka, Rattle has a soprano who might have been born to sing Szymanowski's pure, floated and very high-lying soprano lines.
The result is very fine: one of the most beautiful Szymanowski recordings ever made. And yet 'beautiful Szymanowski' isn't all that hard if the orchestra's good enough and the conductor capable. Rattle's insistence that all the music be heard, its urgency and passion as well as its deliquescent loveliness, makes for uncommonly gripping Szymanowski as well. He reminds one of how much more there is to the Third Symphony than voluptuous yearning.
The choice of soloists for the Stabat mater is interesting: alongside Szmytka's radiant purity are Quivar's throaty vibrancy and Connell's weighty darkness. Not a matching trio, but the contrast is appealing. Garrison in the symphony is a touch hard and strenuous, less enraptured than one or two of the Polish tenors (and sopranos) who've recorded it, but he's a musicianly and likeable singer. The recording is outstanding: lucid, rich and spacious.

Szymanowski: Stabat Mater, Op. 53, etc.

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