There have been a couple of interesting examples recently of conductors filling in the blanks of their respective symphony cycles. Antoni Wit recorded all but one of Krzysztof Penderecki‘s eight symphonies with the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, issued on a series of five discs by Naxos in the noughties. The odd one out was the composer’s Symphony No. 6, which Penderecki had theoretically begun at some point in the mid-1990s (in between work on the Fifth and Seventh symphonies), but which doesn’t seem to have been seriously worked on until 2008, after the Seventh and Eighth were finished, and was ultimately only completed and premièred as recently as 2017. In the meantime Naxos, evidently convinced that the piece would never materialise, put out a box set of the symphonies in 2012, with No. 6 highly conspicuous by its absence. The first (and, until now, only) recording of the Sixth would eventually appear in 2019, by the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Wojciech Rajski, on the CD Accord label. However, Antoni Wit has finally filled this gap and completed his cycle, pairing with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in a new recording of Symphony No. 6 that also includes two other late concertante works, the Trumpet Concertino and Concerto doppio (double concerto).
i’ve previously explored, at some length, Penderecki’s strange stylistic regression, from being radically original at the start of his career to a peddler of trivialities, usually infused with a combination of ersatz Mahler or Shostakovich, from the mid-1970s onwards. It’s the latter of those two composers who makes his presence felt most in the two concertos. The Trumpet Concertino, composed in 2015, is entirely disposable, its 11 minutes suggesting Shostakovich in a particularly good mood. The first of its four movements is the most engaging, in its mix of dramatic gestures from the orchestra (in hindsight, overdramatic), trumpet materialising from afar, and the shift from an upbeat back-and-forth to a softer, more reflective mood. What follows is a breezy lack of substance, a pointless miniature ‘Intermezzo’ and a basic chugging finale, playful but angular. All very familiar; all very forgettable.
The Concerto doppio fares slightly better, though again cleaves far too closely to a kind of de-Stalinised Shostakovich soundworld. Its best aspect – as is true for all later Penderecki – is its emphasis on lyricism, which only makes the jollity elsewhere sound more empty. Violinist Aleksandra Kuls and cellist Hayoung Choi are excellent here, really making the most of both their individual material and the camaraderie they share as a duo, and it’s impossible to blame Wit for wanting to hammer home the orchestra’s curiously oversized cadences. It’s only in the final few minutes of the piece that Penderecki finally seems to tap into something more genuinely personal, moving past the generic cut and thrust and arriving at a rich, unpredictable song with some lovely orchestrational touches.
i suppose the main question about Symphony No. 6, considering its very lengthy gestation, is, “Was it worth the wait?” If what you were missing in your life was a threequel to Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony being the sequel), then perhaps you’d say yes. Mahler used six poems, Zemlinsky used seven, Penderecki uses eight; like Mahler, Penderecki opts for German translations of Chinese texts by Li Po, Du Fu, Li Qingzhao and Zhang Ruoxu; unlike Mahler, and Zemlinsky, the symphony features just one singer, performed in this new recording by bass-baritone Jarosław Bręk.
For all its retrogressive character, it’s impossible not to revel in the delicate lushness and heartfelt passion of Symphony No. 6. One of its key strengths is the songs’ relative brevity; the work certainly evokes Das Lied but there’s no attempt here to emulate the vast scope and ambition of ‘Der Abschied’. Indeed, the longest song is the first, lasting around five minutes, though the soloist completes his part around halfway through, and it’s hard not hear what remains as inessential padding. This is primarily due to the extent to which the voice is so pivotal in the other songs, becoming a clear point around which the orchestra is constantly and clearly focused.
Bręk’s voice is more characterful than beautiful, though his ability to bring out the emotion in the texts is strong. In third movement ‘Auf dem Flusse’ he sets up a nice duet of sorts with the oboe, and clearly revels in being the centre of attention in Penderecki’s neo-Romantic soundworld. If there’s a criticism to be made, it’s that, as it progresses, the dynamic contour of the symphony, as focused on Bręk, starts to sound rather neutral, and would benefit from a wider range that pushes further. To an extent that criticism also applies to the orchestra, though Wit teases out some lovely illustrative music that really makes the texts pop.
As there’s only one other recording available at this stage, it’s worth comparing with Rajski and the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra. Overall, Rajski’s is the more compelling; he moves more briskly through the energetic sequences – his rendition of ‘Die wilden Schwäne’ is outstanding in this respect – and the Polish Chamber Philharmonic create a much more vivid impression, both in terms of orchestral detail and some serious low register heft, that this new recording, for all its clarity, simply can’t compete with. Also, without deviating in any way from Penderecki’s score, Rajski nonetheless manages to make the symphony sound less like a threequel to Das Lied than a 21st century reimagining of Romanticism, while Wit is content to play directly into its neo-Romantic spirit. Furthermore, baritone Stephan Genz brings a real magisterial beauty to the solo role.
All the same, what Wit, Bręk and Norrköping deliver is a straightforward, at times excellent, powerful performance that highlights a different but no less significant aspect of Penderecki’s later work: its filmic quality. There really are times when it’s as if the symphony has slid sideways into John Williams territory (another example of classical music influencing film music influencing classical music, perhaps), particularly in ‘Die geheimnisvolle Flöte’ and the nocturnal opulence of ‘Nächtliches Bild’, and as a long-term fan of Williams’ soundtracks i experienced multiple frissons of excitement when Wit brings this to the fore. It’s also fair to note that the occasional Chinese tunes, performed on an erhu after four of the songs, sound very much better in this recording than in Rajski’s – though why Penderecki felt the symphony benefited from their inclusion continues to be a mystery to me.
It’s good that, having waited so long for it in the first place, we now have two strong recordings of Penderecki’s final symphony. The questions about the composer’s stylistic proclivities and anti-development will perhaps never go away, but despite its abiding sense of nostalgia, the symphony does in its own way sound authentic. Perhaps this is what Penderecki always wanted to sound like, and all the sonorism was just an extravagant diversion along the way.
Symphony No. 6 is released by Naxos, available on CD and download.
