Penderecki: Sacred Choral Works Latvian Radio Choir & Sigvards Klava

• Krzysztof Penderecki (1933 - 2020): O gloriosa virginum:
• 1Penderecki: O gloriosa virginum (2009)03:38
• De profundis:
• 2Penderecki: De profundis (1996)06:09
• In pulverem mortis:
• 3Penderecki: In pulverem mortis (1966)05:52
• Song of Cherubim:
• 4Penderecki: Song of Cherubim (1986)06:43
• Veni Creator:
• 5Penderecki: Veni Creator (1987)07:31
• Miserere:
• 6Penderecki: Miserere (1965)04:35
• Agnus Die:
• 7Penderecki: Agnus Dei (1981)07:32
• Missa brevis:
• 8Penderecki: Missa brevis (2012): I. Kyrie02:03
• 9Penderecki: Missa brevis (2012): II. Gloria03:13
• 10Penderecki: Missa brevis (2012): III. Benedicamus Domino03:16
• 11Penderecki: Missa brevis (2012): IV. Sanctus01:48
• 12Penderecki: Missa brevis (2012): V. Benedictus02:17
• 13Penderecki: Missa brevis (2012): VI. Agnus Dei04:55
• Total Runtime59:32

Info zu Penderecki: Sacred Choral Works

In diesem Jahr jährt sich der 90. Geburtstag von Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020), einem der bedeutendsten polnischen Komponisten des 21. Jahrhunderts. Sakrale Themen und Texte umgeben das Schaffen Pendereckis, darunter viele seiner groß angelegten Werke. Dieses Album des preisgekrönten Lettischen Rundfunkchors unter der Leitung von Sigvards Kļava enthält die meisten seiner beeindruckenden sakralen A-cappella-Chorwerke aus fünf verschiedenen Jahrzehnten, die hauptsächlich in lateinischer Sprache verfasst sind. Diese tiefreligiösen Chorwerke gehören zu den modernen Klassikern des Chorrepertoires. Das jüngste Album des Chores mit Chorwerken von John Cage wurde für die Gramophone Awards 2023 nominiert.

Pendereckis kompositorische Sprache ist von vielen Merkmalen geprägt, und sein Stil hat sich im Laufe seiner Karriere weiterentwickelt. Er experimentierte mit grafischer Notation und verschiedenen erweiterten Techniken, seine Verwendung von dichten Akkordclustern war eines der Markenzeichen seiner Periode vor den 1970er Jahren, und er war fasziniert von der Idee, den Klang von traditionellen Produktionsmitteln zu befreien. Diese Merkmale sind auch in seinen in den 1960er Jahren entstandenen Chorwerken zu hören. Mitte der 1970er Jahre begann sich sein Stil zu verschlankten Klängen und Texturen sowie zur traditionellen Tonalität hinzuentwickeln. Nach der Erfahrung zweier Extreme – der künstlerischen Beschränkung durch die totalitäre Ideologie des kommunistischen Polens und der fast unbegrenzten Freiheit der westlichen Avantgarde, die zu einer kontinuierlichen Zerstörung der Form führte – begann er nach neuen künstlerischen Ausdrucksmitteln zu suchen. Obwohl sich Pendereckis kompositorische Ansätze im Laufe seines jahrzehntelangen Schaffens veränderten und weiterentwickelten, blieb seine leidenschaftliche Reaktion auf dramatische und tragische Ereignisse der menschlichen Geschichte konstant. Pendereckis Fähigkeit, emotionale Reaktionen auf historische Ereignisse, ob in der Vergangenheit oder Gegenwart, zu vermitteln, zeigt sich vielleicht am besten in seiner Chormusik, in der die menschliche Stimme das Instrument ist, das den Verstand mit dem Herzen verbindet. Das umfangreichste Werk auf diesem Album ist Pendereckis Missa brevis (2012), die auch zu seinen letzten Werken gehört.

Latvian Radio Choir
Sigvards Klava, Leitung

Sigvards Kļava
began working with the Latvian Radio Choir in 1987 and was appointed its Chief Conductor and Artistic Director in 1992. As one of Latvia's most prolific choral conductors, Sigvards Kļava has collaborated with every leading choir and orchestra in the country, performing the great works of the standard repertoire in addition to conducting most premieres of new choral works by Latvian composers. He has recorded over 20 CDs with the Latvian Radio Choir. Sigvards Kļava has also been Chief Conductor at a number of Latvian and Nordic song festivals. He is a co-founder of the Latvian New Music Festival ARENA and serves as a member of its artistic board. He teaches young conductors at the Choral Department of the Latvian Academy of Music and the Choral College of the Riga Lutheran Cathedral. Sigvards Kļava appears as a guest conductor with leading European choirs. He has received the Latvian Great Music Award and the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers Award.

Einojuhani Rautavaara
(born 9 October 1928) is internationally one of the best known and most frequently performed Finnish composers. He is by nature a romantic, even a mystic, as is often apparent from the titles of his works: for example Angels and Visitations for orchestra or his double-bass concerto Angel of Dusk. Despite Rautavaara's label of "mysticism" he is a complex and contradictory figure whose works cannot be categorized in stylistic terms.

At the age of seventeen Rautavaara began studying the piano and later went on to study musicology at Helsinki University and composition at the Sibelius Academy. From 1951-53 he was a pupil of Aarre Merikanto receiving his diploma in composition in 1957. In 1955 the Koussewitzky Foundation awarded Jean Sibelius a scholarship in honour of his 90th birthday to enable a young Finnish composer of his choice to study in the United States. Sibelius selected Rautavaara who spent two years studying with Vincent Persichetti at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and also took part in the summer courses at Tanglewood given by Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland. In 1957 Rautavaara continued his studies with Wladimir Vogel in Ascona, Switzerland and a year later with Rudolf Petzold in Cologne. Rautavaara has taught and lectured at the Sibelius Academy as the professor of composition. Since 1988 he has made his living as a composer in Helsinki.

Rautavaara's earliest works revealed close ties to tradition but also his desire to renew it. They were followed by an extreme constructivist and avant-garde phase (as in the serially organized fourth symphony "Arabescata", 1962) after which Rautavaara turned to hyper-romanticism and finally mysticism. Since the early 1980s, Rautavaara has adopted a sort of post-modern musical language in which modern and traditional elements of varying degrees of constructivism or freedom are combined with one another.

Rautavaara has composed eight symphonies, the most frequently performed of them being the Angel of Light, his seventh symphony. Symphony No. 8, The Journey was premiered in April 2000 by The Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch. Other important groups of works include concertos for different solo instruments, among them the three piano concertos, the popular Violin Concerto (1977), the Harp Concerto (2000) and the Clarinet Concerto (2001-02). Rautavaara has also written a large body of chamber music as well as choral and vocal works including All-Night Vigil for a cappella chorus. One of Rautavaara's most popular works is Cantus arcticus, concerto for birds and orchestra, in which the straightforward orchestral part is juxtaposed with the sounds of birds recorded by the composer himself. Rautavaara's latest orchestral works, published by Boosey & Hawkes, include and Manhattan Trilogy (2004), Book of Visions (2005), Before the Icons (2005) and A Tapestry of Life (2007).

Apart form his symphonies (ODE 1145-2Q) and concertos (ODE 1156-2Q), the central pillars of Rautavaara's extensive oeuvre are his operas. With Vincent (1985-87) and The House of the Sun (1990) Rautavaara has scored a notable international success. Aleksis Kivi (1995-96) was premiered at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 1997 and it has been performed in Cosenza, Italy and Minneapolis, U.S.A since then. The latest stage work is Rasputin (2001-2003), an opera about the life of mystic and healer Grigory Rasputin.

Booklet für Penderecki: Sacred Choral Works