Polski

Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki (1933–2010) achieved an international success in the mid-1990s, with his Symphony No. 3, “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”. Since then, Gorecki’s name has been associated almost exclusively with this piece. However, his music is much more than this one brilliant work. Gorecki never looked at musical fashions, but consistently created his own sound universe. In the 1980s Gorecki, feeling misunderstood, stepped back from the official concert life in Poland. He reached out to simple folk and church melodies, making their choral arrangements.

Czarnecki as born in 1949 in Jelenia Góra. In 1963-1969, he attended the State Music School in Cz 281;stochowa as a piano class student. It was also there where he took contact with Prof. Romuald Twardowski, with whom he had his first composition lessons. In 1969-1974, he studied composition at the Warsaw Higher State School of Music (currently the Chopin University of Music) in the class of Prof. Piotr Perkowski and Prof. Romuald Twardowski. Vespers for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (Vesperæ in exaltatione Sanctæ Crucis) is a composition that is thoroughly imbued with the Christian tradition. It is almost a complete form of the evening breviary prayer of the Catholic Church written in Latin but already according to the post-conciliar liturgy. The present album features a complete recording of the said work, dedicated to His Holiness Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki (1933–2010) achieved an international success in the mid-1990s, with his Symphony No. 3, “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”. Since then, Gorecki’s name has been associated almost exclusively with this piece. However, his music is much more than this one brilliant work. Gorecki never looked at musical fashions, but consistently created his own sound universe. In the 1980s Gorecki, feeling misunderstood, stepped back from the official concert life in Poland. He reached out to simple folk and church melodies, making their choral arrangements.

Andreas Hakenberger spent his entire professional career within the territory of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, remaining for 20 years as chapel-master at the Lutheran Church of St. Mary’s in Gdansk. Here he wrote his most outstanding works, a sequence of important motets written in cori spezzati, or polychoral technique. The rich tonal coloring obtained through the combinations of vocal parts is enhanced by the variety of the accompanying instrumentation. With astute use of imitation and rhetorical pauses, Hakenberger’s music emerges as richly colorful, graceful and vibrant. There have been very few recordings of the music of Andreas Hakenberger. This release offers by far the most of his music yet to be issued, and contains all of the 55 motets preserved in the Pelplin Tablature.