Penderecki: Concertos, Vol. 7

Album review

The unique journey of Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, born in 1933, is exactly the opposite of Stravinsky’s, who began with the glamour of Tchaikovsky and Rimski-Korsakov to lead to Rite of Spring and finished his life composing serial music. It is the latter that Penderecki seized from his youth with purely dodecaphonic works. He even became one of the leaders of European avant-garde music before devoting himself, at the turn of the 1960s, to religious music ( St Luke Passion), then composing increasingly classical music until it became the post-romantic style we know today.

It is to this movement that the Double Concerto for violin and viola belongs, composed in 2013 for the bicentenary of the Musikverein in Vienna, and is the most recent work of this release. Dating from 1983, the Concerto for viola is halfway between the concerto and the sinfonia concertante. Written following a commission from the Venezuelan government, this concerto has attracted several soloists who have adapted it for various instruments: cello, clarinet, saxophone and guitar. It is this latest version that is presented here.

The Concerto grosso n° 2 (revised in 2003) features three clarinets and two basset horns (one of Mozart's favorite instruments). Written in a single movement, it is inspired by both baroque music and 20th century expressionism; a duality that brings together very different emotional expressions, from drama to levity, and from the spontaneous style of a scherzo to fugal writing.

Founded in 2007 by the great Polish conductor Jerzy Semkov, who passed away in 2014, Sinfonia luventus is made up of young musicians under the age of 30, all from Polish conservatoires, that have found the opportunity to perfect their orchestral skills before dispersing to the main orchestras of the country and the world. © François Hudry/Qobuz