Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
Sun, Dec 9 2012, 6:05PM
#2
RE: Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
Hi Tagalie!
This weekend's listening project of the Penderecki Polish Requiem having been done, I can share a few thoughts with you:
Well first off it is certainly a large Requiem setting clocking in at 1 hour and 40 minutes. It seems to have grown and expanded over the years, and has been assembled by the composer in non-chronological order, beginning with the Lacrimosa, then the Agnus Dei, then the Recordare and the Dies Irae. The work says Richard Whitehouse in his notes, was first performed in that version (not totally sure in what order those movements).
It wouldn't lose any of its dramatic impact if it were overall a bit shorter, as I think it's maybe over-long, but what the hell, it is certainly a work of great feeling and power. The Lacrimosa-Sanctus-Agnus Dei sequence seems to be the real emotional core. The Sanctus is so good I would include it in its entirety at 13:44 if I were compiling a double CD introduction to this composer!
The moods vary between terror (as in the Dies Irae and particularly in the Ingemisco track 9), supplication (the three above) and forthright prayer (Swiety Boze penultimate track). The Quid Sum miser and the Lux Aeterna are spooky too.
Although I rate Penderecki I do have an area of doubt possibly, in that dramatic effect and mood seem to matter more to him than harmony does. It's almost as if he isn't bothered about the vertical harmonies, but much more so with the harmonies that happen or result from the individual horizontal lines. It's interesting but feels like at times it lacks a harmonic skeleton.
Whitehouse also points out that the work combines old and new Penderecki (tonal melodies side by side with tone clusters for example) and that this pluralist thinking emerged with the 2nd Cello Concerto of 1982. By coincidence, I listened to that piece while driving home from work earlier this week through rain, sleet and snow. An appropriately moody piece! It struck me as a kind of dialogue not so much between soloist and orchestra but between two moods - one full of angst and one more inward looking and reflective.
I do think he has something important to say about - not wanting to sound highfaluting - the heart of darkness idea - which cuts us off from God. That's the way I read his devout but very sombre Catholicism. We members of the RC Church joke about having an A-level in guilt. I reckon Penderecki has a doctorate in that area! He is also a master of drama and orchestration alright.
Brumas - must listen to the Stravinsky Requiem Canticles...
Mark
What can you say about the Mozart? Sublime...
Wed, Dec 12 2012, 2:37PM
#3
Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
Gave the Penderecki a listen as well. This piece is huge. Dark and huge. Sublime (in its full eightteenth century meaning) neo-late romantic music where Penderecki's earlier avant-garde tendencies shine through here and there. The only part that I felt did not live up to the level of the rest was the Recordare.
Indeed, this requiem goes straight into the heart of darkness (as does the Chion, but where that piece is a reflection of the Lacanian fragmented subject and the anxiety of death in a post death-of God world, the Penderecki is profoundly religious, perhaps even in its literal sense of re-ligio: re-tying of a bond to the sacred...) Dark, powerful stuff.
Mark: The Stravinsky is one of the supreme religious masterpieces of the 20th century as far as I'm concerned, together with his Symphony of Psalms which you probably already know.
Wed, Dec 12 2012, 3:09PM
#4
RE: Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
Brumas, Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles is definitely one of the most significant Requiems of the 20th Century. However, Durufle's subtle and immediate effect of his Requiem and the spiritual and at the same time human profundity of Britten's War Requiem are the most probable supreme Requiems of the past century (I wouldn't go that far to talk about "religious masterpieces").
Penderecki's "huge and dark" work is claimed to have been written as the equivalent of Brahms' German Requiem; a sort of "a Polish Requiem". It ended up in a over the top, a bit uneven, definitely "huge", unfortunately too "dark" work. However, it is one of the most significant examples of the Requiem's setting in the 20th Century.
Speaking of the "local" Requiems, we should not forget or neglect the quite substantial (in its own unique way) Das Berliner Requiem by Kurt Weil (on a text by Brecht).
Parla
Wed, Dec 12 2012, 3:27PM
#5
RE: Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
I most fully agree on the Britten. Very powerful work, and the way the traditional requiem and Wilfred Owen's poems are interwoven is masterly. I must disagree on the Duruflé though. It's pretty, in a slightly naïve and sentimental way, but by no means a masterpiece. If it's 'subtle' you're going for, I would choose Fauré above Duruflé any day.
Wed, Dec 12 2012, 6:45PM
#6
RE: Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
Thanks for the breakdown of the Polish Requiem, Mark. I do owe the piece another chance. Got it out of the library a year ago and only listened through twice.
In general, I do prefer early to late Penderecki. The comparison is a reach, but I'm struck by parallels with early and late Vaughan Williams. Discipline and organization seems to come at the expense of a certain degree of invention and unfiltered inspiration.
Brave man, listening to music while driving through snow! As soon as I see those splatters on the windscreen, off goes the radio.
Wed, Dec 12 2012, 6:50PM
#7
RE: Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
Cheers Brumas. I think you are spot on in your excellent description of the Penderecki and its perceptions of our relationship now with God.
For me he is still a hugely important composer. I just hope that his music doesn't get 'lost' in the future, and that he doesn't end up being one of those people who were big in their day but whose music fades over time. I just have an uncomfortable hunch that whereas Gorecki and Lutoslawski might last the course of time, Penderecki might not do.
The reason I say that is because the 'gloriously confrontational' (if I may borrow a phrase which DST used to describe Lachenmann) earlier works such as the Threnody, Anaklasis, Fluorescences etc....have given way to this post-romantic darker than Bruckner sound world, and I'm really not sure how popular either of these styles have been.
He has certainly expressed in his works the horrors of the 20th Century alright, in an extremely dramatic and arresting way, and in a highly individual manner. In my book, that should be enough to earn him a place in posterity...
The Symphony of Psalms is a great piece. Must add the Requiem Canticles to my list...
Mark
Wed, Dec 12 2012, 6:54PM
#8
RE: Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
Hi Tagalie! We're on line at the same time!
That's an interesting parallel. I'm not sure if I know enough about late VW just yet, but I'll bear that one in mind when I come to his later stuff...
(What passes for snow over here is minimal really most of the time...)
Mark
Wed, Dec 12 2012, 7:05PM
#9
RE: Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
(What passes for snow over here is minimal really most of the time...)
Mark
It's less of a concern about the weather than about me. I can still recall exactly where I was in what piece of music when I managed to take my car off the road back in the late '70s. I was giving my new sound system a workout.
The adjective often used to describe late VW is 'bluff', which I think is quite apt.
Wed, Dec 12 2012, 7:25PM
#10
RE: Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
Hey Tagalie!
Oh heck! Well the JVC car cd radio having been fitted last week, I was giving it a work out with the Penderecki cd.
Tonight it was Jolivet's Poemes pour L'Enfant. Now THAT'S a really good piece by another composer I find it difficult at times to evaluate exactly (and I suppose I should post that on the Christmas thread that you started a couple of years ago)...post-Debussy woodwinds....and with Pastorales de Noel on the same ASV CD, well that's tomorrow night!
Time I re-connected with Ludwig. Yesterday am on Radio 3 circa 8 am it was the slow movement from the Emperor, and today the stern funeral marchy slow movement from the 7th Symphony. One forgets at times how good he is. Was. Still is.
Also tonight was a simple Great Classics for Driving CD. Dangerous. You cannot listen to the Intermezzo from the Karelia suite, Copland's Fanfare for the Common man, and Holst's Jupiter without automatically taking your left hand off the steering wheel to conduct!
Mark
Wed, Dec 12 2012, 10:44PM
#11
RE: Requiem: hundreds ways to sing it in the centuries
Brumas, Faure is one of the very top Requiems I appreciate and love, but it was written in 1893. So, technically it belongs to the 19th century. You referred to the "religious masterpieces of 20th century" and Durufle's Requiem is one of them. It was written in 1947 and it is a subtle masterpiece exactly because it can have the "cover" of naivety and sentimentality to pass with trully beautiful music a very difficult to handle message (something only in the era of Mozart and before we may encounter). Besides, it is the most performed and recorded (and beloved particularly by the singers) Requiem of the 20th century and that says something.
Parla
As for Mozart, I'm 100% with you Brumas. Not only for the "supreme expression" but also for the musicality, the perfection of structure, the balance of movements, the essence of the composition per se.
Parla