Penderecki: Utrenja
Iwona Hossa (soprano), Agnieszka Rehlis (mezzo-soprano), Piotr Kusiewicz (tenor), Piotr Nowacki (bass) & Gennady Bezzubenkov (basso profondo)
Warsaw Boys’ Choir, Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Antoni Wit
In the hands of Antoni Wit's expert Warsaw forces and a fine solo line-up, it all makes a powerful effect, sombre in its Easter Saturday lamentation and wildly joyful in its Easter Day celebration.
Penderecki: Utrenja
Iwona Hossa (soprano), Agnieszka Rehlis (mezzo-soprano), Piotr Kusiewicz (tenor), Piotr Nowacki (bass) & Gennady Bezzubenkov (basso profondo)
Warsaw Boys’ Choir, Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Antoni Wit
Purchase product
In the hands of Antoni Wit's expert Warsaw forces and a fine solo line-up, it all makes a powerful effect, sombre in its Easter Saturday lamentation and wildly joyful in its Easter Day celebration.
About
Penderecki’s Utrenja was inspired by the Orthodox liturgy for Holy Saturday with its focus on the lamentation of Christ’s death and the Easter Sunday morning service commemorating the Resurrection.
The composer remarks that ‘Utrenja is a combination of pure, a cappella vocal writing and orchestral effects (for strings and percussion) very much connected with electronic music’.
Enthusiastically received by audiences, it stands beside his Polish Requiem (8557386-87) and St Luke Passion (8557149) as one of the towering masterpieces of modern Polish music.
Contents and tracklist
- Iwona Hossa, Agnieszka Rehlis, Piotr Kusiewicz, Piotr Nowacki, Gennady Bezzubenkov
- Warsaw Philharmonic Choir, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
- Antoni Wit
- Iwona Hossa, Agnieszka Rehlis, Piotr Kusiewicz, Piotr Nowacki, Gennady Bezzubenkov
- Warsaw Boys Choir, Warsaw Philharmonic Choir, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
- Antoni Wit
Awards and reviews
July 2009
In the hands of Antoni Wit's expert Warsaw forces and a fine solo line-up, it all makes a powerful effect, sombre in its Easter Saturday lamentation and wildly joyful in its Easter Day celebration.
1st May 2009
Utrenja continues the grandiloquent musical synthesis that Penderecki had exploited so successfully in the Passion, mixing his modish harmonic clusters and atonal orchestral writing with elements drawn from Slavonic traditions.
Classics Today
Antoni Wit and his Polish forces are incomparable in this repertoire
