1.Bogurodzica (Mother of God)

Concerto for Piano
2.Piano Concerto: I. Andante con moto
3.Piano Concerto: II. Corale
4.Piano Concerto: III. Toccata

5.Siwa mgla (Grey Mist): Siwa mgla (Hoary Fog)
6.Koscielec 1909

Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra,  
Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir
Waldemar Malicki - Piano
Antoni Wit – Conductor

Next album from THOMAS CIANNARELLA. Many thanks.

The music of this contemporary composer hits many of the right buttons for me. It is well crafted, it has a discernible shape, and it is expressed in a confident and original voice. Because of the sleek appeal of the music, it was not surprising to read that Wojciech Kilar is primarily known as a film composer, with over 100 scores to his credit, mostly in the Polish film industry, but also for such well-known Western movies as Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden, and Jane Campion’s Portrait of a Lady. His style in those scores, as well as the music on this CD, is essentially post-Romantic, with strong doses of minimalism and Eastern liturgical music (think Górecki and Pärt).

At the heart of this program is the 1997 Piano Concerto. The work is in three movements, but it is otherwise unconventionally constructed, beginning with a dreamy Andante that is large in scope but gentle in impact. With its metrical regularity and repeated melodic patterns, this is the most overtly minimalist music on the CD. The middle movement is slower still, and shares a Brahmsian melodic quality with the juggernaut-like final movement. Malicki has a firm control over the deceptively simple sounding solo part. The opening work, Bogurodzica, is the most harmonically advanced, with dissonant outbursts of choral writing for this setting of an ancient Polish hymn. It opens and closes with the beating of drums, alluding to a martial atmosphere. The work shares the composer’s predilection for extreme dynamic contrasts with the other two works on the program, and opens so quietly that you might be tempted to crank up the volume, which will put you at the risk of ear damage a few moments later.

Siwa Mgla (“Grey Mist”) and Koscielec are both tone poems, and are the pieces most like “movie music” on the program. Neither work is without merit and even beauty. Siwa Mgla is most compelling when the solo baritone enters, due in no small part to the richly expressive voice of Wieslaw Ochman. In Koscielec (named for a mountain in the Tatra range of Southern Poland), however, the bombast finally overwhelms any subtlety, in a score that would probably work well for a mass-market sci-fi flick.

I have long admired the work of Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic. This is a great Eastern European orchestra, showing off an impressive combination of virtuosity and passion. Both orchestra and conductor contribute immensely to the appeal of Kilar’s music, to which they sound intensely committed. --- FANFARE: Peter Burwasser, arkivmusic.com

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1. Migrants (Nicola Piovani) (1:02)
2. Kadish (Armand Amar) (2:46)
3. Agata's Theme V1 (Wojciech Kilar) (1:00)
4. Simon (Nicola Piovani) (3:21)
5. Bilal Song (Nicola Piovani) (2:56)
6. Welcome (Nicola Piovani) (3:05)
7. The Black Sun (Wojciech Kilar) (2:39)
8. A la nage (Nicola Piovani) (2:36)
9. Agata's Theme (Wojciech Kilar) (1:57)
10. Welcome (Piano Solo) (Nicola Piovani) (1:37)

If I were to direct a film, I would undoubtedly hire one or more first rate composers. I still remember the day I discovered that Nicolai Piovani, Armand Amar and Wojciech Kilar were attached to the French film Welcome; a dream come true. Yet Piovani, with whom director Philippe Lioret had collaborated three times before, was the only one hired to compose original music. During the editing process they had assembled a temp score including music by Kilar and Amar. Because it worked so extremely well, the director didn't want to throw it out and asked Piovani to compose new music around it.

Welcome begins with an attempt from immigrants to be smuggled from the harbor of Calais to the shores of Dover, England. This is the scene were they placed Amar's cue "Kadish" from Va, Vis et Deviens, which was originally written for a film about refugees in Sudan. The piece is a moving composition for duduk and strings that powerfully addresses a plight of humanity.

While the other music is quite different, it manages to form a logical whole. Piovani wrote a beautiful theme for the piano that easily sticks, mainly because it is so unsophisticated. We get a few interesting treatments, one merely for the solo piano, while at other times subtle strings accompany it. The theme which is used for a immigrant who wants to try to swim across the North Sea to the shores of England, changes emotionally when the character attempts to do so. It is then that the theme develops into something of subtly operatic and a string driven emotional piece. Another notable thing is the orchestral chord progression in some of the music that recalls the works of Amar.

The music from Wojciech Kilar's Il Sole Nero is also in tune with Piovani's score, especially the string-and-piano led theme "Agatha's theme" sounds an awful lot like Piovani's music. Yet the rambling cue "The Black Sun" is the only example of a piece of music that is unmistakably written by Kilar. Naturally, if you've already ascended deeper into the world of this Polish composer and this specific score, it's most likely not that difficult.

The assembled existing score and originally written music makes an interesting listening experience. While the music of the three composer have their differences, they're strikingly similar in sound and emotion. It's subtle, emotional music with a very humane and personal touch. And even though the release is fairly short with its 22 minutes, I can truly recommend this release to everyone. --- Joep de Bruijn, maintitles.net

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1. Krzesany
2. Angelus
3. Exodus
4. Victoria

Hasmik Papian - soprano
Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Antoni Wit – conductor

Epic and fairly obvious music which will undoubtedly appeal to a wide audience. Great swathes of violent chromatics tumble down through the full orchestra in a burst of almost horrifying dissonance. Dramatic, if short-lived, stuff greatly enhanced by a hearty recording which reminds us just how spatial stereo sound can be. The Polish National RSO pack a hefty punch, with pugilistic brass and gloriously incisive strings. Antoni Wit Wrings every last gramme of excitement and drama from this supercharged score. Angelus and Exodus are extended choral works providing the Cracow singers with ample opportunities to blow away any remaining cobwebs; which they do with a vengeance. ---Marc Rochester, Gramophone, May 2002

Wojciech Kilar was born in the then Polish city of Lwów, now L’viv in Ukraine on 17th July, 1932. He studied piano and composition at the Katowice Academy from 1950 to 1955, then at the State Higher Music School in Kraków until 1958. In 1957 he attended the Darmstadt Summer School, and during 1959-60 was a pupil of Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In 1960 his Oda Béla Bartók in memoriam received the Lili Boulanger Foundation Award, the first of numerous prizes to come.

A prolific film composer, notably for such major Polish directors as Krysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, in the 1990s Kilar has found success in the West for his scores to Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for which he won an ASCAP award in 1993, Roman Polánski’s Death and the Maiden, and Jane Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady. After a period of experimentation in the 1960s, his concert work became notable for its directness of expression and immediacy of impact. Polish traditional sources, sacred and secular, are often prominent, in an idiom which, according to the writer Adrian Thomas, has "... been variously regarded as spuriously kitsch, naively devotional or intuitively post-modern".

Krzesany (1974), inspired by the Polish mountains, was Kilar’s first major success outside Poland, thanks in part to a recording by Witold Rowicki which enjoyed wide circulation in the West. Strings open with a passionate unison statement in chromatic, supplicatory harmonies. Dynamics quieten, lower strings sound a passive response, and a dance-like motion in the basses works its way towards a repeat of the opening bars, now on brass and strings. Three rapid downward glissandi across the orchestra lead to a ruminative theme on solo strings, then a general pause before a sequence of hammered unison orchestral chords. The music now drives forward in motoric rhythmic unisons on strings, with brass and percussion emerging to further the momentum. Calmer music on strings provides necessary respite, before the staggered unison orchestral approach to the work’s peroration, a raucous folk-like mêlée for strings, reinforced by shrill wind and clanging percussion. Held chords in the brass gradually break through the texture, at which point the work comes to a sudden, heart-stopping conclusion.

Angelus (1984) is a large-scale setting of the Ave Maria text. Muttered recitations, alternately for men’s and women’s voices, gradually increase in emotional and dynamic intensity. As the voices join in unison, a timpani roll leads to an outburst for chorus and orchestra around the words Jesus and Amen. A solo soprano enters in ecstatic strains, complemented by the chorus’ devotional restraint. Piano chords underpin a texture of Respighi-like richness, as the soprano continues her rapt meditation, the chorus echoing certain of her phrases as a brief climax, again on the name Jesus, is reached. As the vocal writing becomes more imploring, the music moves towards a fulsome outburst, cut off by a tam-tam stroke which returns soloist and chorus to their initial invocation. Strings and timpani provide the basis for the benedictory final section, in which the work’s emotional essence is brought to a noble apotheosis. These measured tones again build to a climax, which stops short, leaving the music to play itself out in a mood of beneficent calm. Over low strings, the opening recitation briefly returns, concluding with a hushed Amen.

Exodus (1981) is among the most striking of Kilar’s major choral works, thanks principally to its Boléro-like rhythmic momentum. A pulsating harp motion is joined by gradually coalescing fragments of a clarinet melody, strings entering to fill out the harmony and expand the emotional orbit. Tambourine adds an offbeat rhythm to the harp, while upper strings contribute a sumptuous cantilena to the texture. The clarinet theme is taken over by piano and solo strings, then the music descends through several harmonic planes, with the lower strings left to continue the main theme accompanied by deep left-hand piano chords. The texture gradually fills out once more, contracting rhythmically into a striding, march-like presentation of the theme in trumpets and trombones. These cede the foreground to upper strings, before the whole orchestra alights on the theme’s opening phrase, suddenly left sounding pensive in solo wind and strings. The latter drive the momentum forward, the march motion resumes, and the chorus enters with rapid-fire repetitions of biblical phrases. Domine is repeated with increasing fervour, and the main theme returns to cries of Alleluia. Chorus and orchestra unite for a martial statement of the main theme, the work ending in a mood of wild elation.

Victoria (1983) condenses this process into a short commemorative ode. A grandiose orchestral gesture launches the chorus in stirring, Orff-like music of military decisiveness. As the motion slackens, the words Deus dixit mark the return of the opening chords, bringing the piece full circle simply but effectively. ---Richard Whitehouse, naxos.com

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1.Dracula - The Beginning
2.Vampire Hunters
3.Mina's Photo
4.Lucy's Party
5.The Brides
6.The Storm
7.Love Remembered
8.The Hunt Builds
9.The Hunters Prelude
10.The Green Mist
11.Mina/Dracula
12.The Ring Of Fire
13.Love Eternal
14.Ascension
15.End Credits
16.Love Song For A Vampire

Krakow Philharmonic Choir
Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra in Katowice
Antoni Wit - conductor

There can be no doubt that Wojciech Kilar's score to "Bram Stoker's DRACULA" is one of the highlights of filmmusic of the 90's. However, I feel that the soundtrack release leaves a lot to be desired. First of all: Many of the tracks have been horribly edited, to the point where you don't even think it was Kilar who composed them, but rather some mixer. "The Storm" is the best example of this. Furthermore, most of the tracks are not even the ones used for the film. "The Brides", although based on the same theme, is an intirely different version than what ended up on screen. It's not bad music at all, but it ruins the listening experience. This is also the case with "The Grenn Mist". If they really wanted all that "alternate" music on the cd, why not just add it as bonus music? Also, it puzzles me, how they can exclude perhaps the most interesting and original cue of the intire film (the chase scene music at the end of the film) and instead use a cue like "The Ring of Fire" which is basically just sound effects, and has very little to do with music. Sure, it's spooky to hear a lot of laughing demons and screaming horses, but it's not the actual score, so why put it on the cd?

Overall, I don't regret getting this cd, but I'm not particular joyfull about it either. Kilars music is magnifcent, but what a shame it had to get such a pathetic release(!) ---Sren Thomsen, amazon.com

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0. Zapowiedz IV Symfonii (Anouncement in polish)
1. Las (Forest)
2. Wedrowka przez Pieklo (Walk through Hell)
3. Swiatlo (Light)
4. Milosc (Love)

Helen Kearns - soprano 
Klemens Sander – baritone
Cracow Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra
Igor Dohovič – conductor

9th November 2007
Broadcast from Dom Polonii, Cracow

''Sinfonia de motu'' was written in 2005, to commemorate World Physics Year. Within the score, the composer placed a musical motto, consisting of five notes: G e c h A [H representing B natural]. These are an encryption of the basic concepts and quantities of physics - the gravitational constant, the electron charge, speed of light, Planck's constant and the atom. From this musical structure all the motifs within the entire symphony were derived. As for literary text, large excerpts from Dantes Divine Comedy were used. They form a certain narrative leading from darkness, the initial chaos and hell to the heavens, the stars, eternal and supreme light, and finally the all-embracing love, which moves the sun and the stars- and so concluding with the final triumphant song of praise in honour of the Creator: Gloria --- Leszek Polony: discussion of the work in the third Festival of Polish Music programme notes, pwm.com.pl

Sinfonia de motu powstała w roku 2005 roku z okazji Światowego Roku Fizyki. W partyturze dzieła kompozytor umieścił motto muzyczne: motyw złożony z pięciu dźwięków: G e c h A. Są to zaszyfrowane podstawowe pojęcia i wielkości fizyczne: stała grawitacji, ładunek elektronu, prędkość światła, stała Plancka oraz atom. Ta struktura muzyczna stała się materiałem motywicznym całej symfonii. Jako tekst literacki posłużyły kompozytorowi obszerne fragmenty z Boskiej komedii Dantego. Układają się one w pewną całość, której sens wiedzie od ciemności, pierwotnego chaosu i piekła ku niebu, gwiazdom, wiecznemu i najwyższemu światłu, a wreszcie wszechogarniającej miłości, co gwiazdy porusza i słońce a więc ku finałowej triumfalnej pieśni pochwalnej na cześć Stwórcy: Glorii. ---Leszek Polony, nota programowa III Festiwalu Muzyki Polskiej, pwm.com.pl

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1.         Father Maximilian (08:09)
2.         Brother Anselm (00:26)
3.         Father Kolbe's Preaching (02:31)
4.         Auschwitz's Dungeon (02:27)
5.         The Ascent To The Calvary (01:18)
6.         Childhood's Remembrance (04:37)
7.         Brother Anselm (00:26)
8.         Beatification (01:48)
9.         Saint Maximilian (02:42)
10.       Exodus (22:46)

Film Score, Film Soundtrack

Father Maximilian Kolbe, himself a prisoner of the concentration camp, defended in that place of death an innocent man's right to life. Father Kolbe defended his right to life, declaring that he was ready to go to death in the man's place, because he was the father of a family and his life was necessary for his dear ones. Father Maximilian Maria Kolbe thus reaffirmed the Creator's exclusive right over innocent human life. He bore witness to Christ and to love. For the Apostle John writes: "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16).

Wojciech Kilar: 17 July 1932 – 29 December 2013.

Even though many listeners may be most familiar with the Polish composer Wojciech Kilar's work through his score for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), his compositions also include numerous highly successful orchestral works, in addition to many vocal and chamber pieces. Following a rigorous education in Eastern Europe, the composer began to take several prizes, and has continued to do so throughout his career. His formal training in piano and composition began in 1950 at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice with B. Woytowicz and continued with him at the State Higher School of Music in Kraków between 1955 - 1958. During the same period of time (1957), he attended summer classes at Darmstadt. Shortly after he completed his training with Woytowicz, he received a French government scholarship that allowed him to further his education in composition, this time in Paris with Nadia Boulanger (1959 - 1960). The year he finished these studies, his Oda Béla Bartók in memoriam gained him the Lili Boulanger Award. Prizes that followed included the Polish Composer's Union Award (1975), the Polish State Award (1980), the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Prize (1984), an ASCAP Award (1992), and the Sonderpreis des Kulturpreis Schlesein des Landes Niedersachsen (1996).

Kilar's orchestral (symphonies, symphonic poems, concertos, etc.) and stage works (11 scores total) are very widely recorded, the former exclusively under the Milan label and the latter under a wider selection of recording companies like Olympia, Erato, London, Silva Screen, and Varese Sarabande. Of his compositions that have been recorded, most are excerpts from his film scores, which include L'année du soleil calme, La chronique des événements amoureux, Full Gallop (Cwal), Hypothesis (Hipoteza) (1973), Land of Promise (Ziemia Obiecana) (1975), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), and La terre de la grande promesse. ---Meredith Gailey, Rovi

Wojciech Kilar was one of Poland’s premier symphonic composers. Born in Lwow in 1932, he studied at the Higher School of Music in Katowice with piano master W. Markiewiczowna and composition tutor B. Woytowicz. He studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, which he considers his second home. Kilar has been awarded numerous international prizes for composition, among them the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Award of Boston in 1960, the Jurzykowski Foundation of New York in 1983, and in his native Poland, the State Award Grade 1 in 1980, the awards of the Minister of Culture in 1967 and 1976, and in 1975, the Award of the Polish Association of Composers.

Kilar’s most important compositions include A Short Overture, Symphony for Strings, Il Sinfonia Concertante for Piano and Orchestra, Riff 62, A Prelude and a Christmas Carol, Solenne for 67 Performers, Upstairs-Downstairs, Krzesany, Koscielec 1909, Grey Mist, Orawa, Victoria, Exodus, Choralvorspiel, Angelus.

Referring to John Cage as “the Pope of modern music,” Kilar has also been strongly influenced by both classical compositions and indigenous Polish folk music. His works have been performed by several major international symphony orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Symphony and the New York Philharmonic. For the past 30 years, he has also been composing music for films in Europe, working on numerous projects with directors Krzysztof Zanussi, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Francis Ford Coppola, Jane Campion, and Roman Polanski. --- milanrecords.com

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1. Napoléon et l'Europe (galopade #1) (01:45)
2. Dix-huit Brumaire #1 (01:13)
3. Dix-huit Brumaire #2 (03:17)
4. Dix-huit Brumaire #3 (01:43)
5. Moscou #1 (02:22)
6. Moscou #2 (02:13)
7. Moscou #3 (02:40)
8. Moscou #4 (02:03)
9. Varsovie #1 (00:55)
10. Varsovie #2 (01:44)
11. Varsovie #3 (Plaisir d'amour) (01:57)
12. Varsovie #4 (02:27)
13. Lisbonne #1 (01:05)
14. Lisbonne #2 (01:59)
15. Lisbonne #3 (01:32)
16. Lisbonne #4 (02:00)
17. Capitulation #1 (01:48)
18. Capitulation #2 (02:39)
19. Capitulation #3 (01:55)
20. Napoléon et l'Europe (galopade #2) (01:19)

L’Orchestre Symphonique de la Radio et Television Polonaise de Katowice
Wojciech Kilar - director

Special thanks to Thomas Ciannarella who's sent this rare album to us.

The ambitious TV mini-series Napoléon et l'Europe was created by French channels La Sept and FR3 in 1991. The making of this series, consisted of six episodes, was to give the opportunity to five European countries to tell the story of Napoleon Bonaparte from their own points of view.

The French-Polish crew was prestigious with a high-budget. French historian Jean Gruault wrote some of the episodes. Six European filmmakers directed each one episode (among them, French Pierre Lary, Polish Janusz Majewski and Krzysztof Zanussi). French actor Jean-François Stévenin (Truffaut's L'Argent de poche, Demy's Une chambre en ville and Brotherhood of the Wolf) played the leading role.

Crowned Emperor by the Pope in 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte remains forever associated with the numberless victories of his army on the fields of battles that brought his Empire to count as many as 132 departments and numerous vassal states. However, the coalitions of all the great powers of Europe do not accept the dazzling ascension of the heir of the Revolution.

Music Box Records proudly presents for the first time on CD the unreleased original television soundtrack composed by Wojciech Kilar. He is one of the most talented and best known Polish composers around the world. He has written music for over 140 films. For the past forty years he has been collaborating with many directors, including with Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi, Roman Polanski, Jane Campion, Francis Ford Coppola and James Gray.

The score of Napoléon et l'Europe is filled with all the composer's trademarks: a lushly brooding sense of Eastern European sensibility, romantic orchestral melodies, pastiches of heroic marches and chamber music, a great amount of gravity and tension, forceful percussive rhythm and ascending melodic lines so typical of this composer. ---musicbox-records.com

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Disc 1
1. Orawa (09:49)
2. Krzesany (15:28)
3. Exodus (22:39)
4. Victoria (04:52)

Disc 2
1. W stepie szerokim (Przygody Pana Michala) (00:50)
2. Smuga cienia (Smuga cienia) (03:08)
3. Tango (Salto) (04:17)
4. Zazdrosc i medycyna (Zazdrosc i medycyna) (02:53)
5. Walc (Tredowata) (04:51)
6. Bilans kwartalny (Bilans kwartalny) (03:52)
7. Marsz kawalerii (Kronika wypadkow milosnych) (05:26)
8. Witek i Alina (Kronika wypadkow milosnych) (04:10)
9. Walc (Ziemia obiecana) (03:27)
10. Mina-Dracula (Dracula) (04:50)
11. The Brides (Dracula) (04:58)
12. Lucy's Party (Dracula) (02:59)
13. Vampire Hunters (Dracula) (03:07)
14. Epilog (Portret damy) (05:02)
15. Wokaliza (Dziewiate wrota) (03:56)
16. Polonez (Pan Tedeusz) (04:42)
17. Szepty i lzy (Portret damy) (04:36)
18. Smuga cienia (Smuga cienia) (03:16)

Performer:
Anna Maria Jopek, Tomasz Stańko, William Gallison

Wojciech Kilar pianista i kompozytor uważany jest za jednego z najwybitniejszych twórców muzyki filmowej naszych czasów. Po ukończeniu katowickiej PWSM współpracował z wieloma sławnymi artystami takimi jak: Krzysztof Zanussi, Andrzej Wajda, Francis Ford Coppola, czy Roman Polański. W dowód uznania dla swojej pracy Kilar otrzymał 10 marca 1999 r. tytuł doctora honoris causa Uniwersytetu Opolskiego. W 1998 r. artysta został członkiem Polskiej Akademii Umiejętności. Oprócz muzyki filmowej Wojciech Kilar komponował również utwory orkiestrowe, kameralne, wokalno-instrumentalne i fortepianowe. 16 października 1998 r. na ulicy Piotrowskiej w Łodzi odsłonięto jego gwiazdę w Alei Gwiazd. ---filmweb.pl

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Magnificat for solo voices, choir and orchestra (2006)
1	I. Magnificat (chór / choir) 	5:14	
2	II. Magnificat anima mea Dominum (sopran / soprano) 	9:26	
3	III. Quia respexit humilitatem (sopran, chór / soprano, choir) 	8:01	
4	IV. Quia fecit mihi magna (sopran, bas, chór / soprano, bass, choir) 	5:36	
5	V. Fecit potentiam (chór / choir) 	7:46	
6	VI. Esurientes implevit bonis (sopran, tenor, bas / soprano, tenor, bass) 	3:12	
7	VII. Suscepit Israel (sopran, tenor, bas, chór / soprano, tenor, bass, choir) 12:47	

8	Victoria for mixed choir and orchestra (1983)

Izabela Kłosińska - soprano 
Tomasz Krzysica - tenor 
Piotr Nowacki – bass

Silesian Orchestra and Choir Katowice
Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk – direktor

Polish composer Wojciech Kilar is not as well known as several of his contemporaries and compatriots such as Penderecki and Górecki, but his compositional path has taken a similar trajectory. He was trained as a modernist, with a stint at Darmstadt, but unlike them he always had a strong interest in folk traditions. Like them, he experienced an aesthetic conversion in the 1970s and abandoned the modernism of his youth. His music more closely resembles that of Górecki in its radical simplicity and incorporation of certain minimalist tendencies in his slowly unfolding musical time. His music has more textural, harmonic, and expressive variety than Górecki's, though. Kilar is a real original, and his artistic vision seems unbeholden to any school or tradition. His music has a level of constantly unfolding inventiveness and unpredictability that sets it apart from Górecki's, which can rely heavily on repetition. Kilar's serenely joyous 50-minute Magnificat is a substantial and deeply expressive work that deserves to be better known. It has moments of starkly simple lyricism, such as the second movement, in which a soaring soprano line for the most part is accompanied by strings and harp in unison over a slowly shifting chordal drone. The composer can also unleash torrents of rhythmic and harmonic energy where the text calls for real force. His brief and propulsive anthem Victoria is quirkily martial sounding, but highly effective, ending in an astonishing but entirely appropriate choral shout of victory. The Silesian Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and Choir, led by Miroslaw Jacek Blaszczyk, perform with intensity and warmth. Among the soloists, soprano Izabella Klosinska stands out for the richness and lyrical purity of her performance. Dux's sound is warm, resonant, and present. The CD should be of interest to any fans of "holy minimalists;" Kilar's minimalism may not be as pure as theirs, but his eclecticism reveals an original and immensely appealing voice. ---Stephen Eddins, Rovi

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1.   	Kyrie 13:01
2.   	Gloria 07:00
3.   	Credo 17:21			play
4.   	Sanctus 05:23
5.   	Benedictus 02:42
6.   	Agnus Dei 12:18
7.   	Dona nobis pacem 06:42

Izabella Klosinska - soprano 
Jadwiga Rappe - mezzo-soprano
Charles Daniels - tenor
Romuald Tesarowicz – bass
Warsaw Philharmonic Choir
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
Kazimierz Kord - conductor

Kilar has not always been the beaming face of contemporary Polish music. In the mid-1970s his works bore the sterner impress of Penderecki. The choral and orchestral work Bogurodzica is an example of something closer to the forbidding face of dissonance and fragmentation. In the Mass recorded here Kilar has profundity in his sights but his language, shaped by the universality of his subject matter, is tonal and communicates without barrier.

Spirituality has always been there. Kilar's Missa Pro Pace is ambitious in scale and message. Like the recently heard Vasks String Quartet No. 4 the music seems to look back over the twentieth century knowing its slaughters, pogroms and obdurate heartlessness. Rather than despairing the Mass finally sings a reconciling song - sorrowful yet triumphantly calm.

The Missa is in five meaty sections each allocated its own substantial track. There is no further sub-division although some of the sections are clearly in further episodes.

The scene is set by a stern-tense adagio where the radiant opulence of Barber-like strings meets the seething tension of a Shostakovich adagio-meditation. There is an unaccompanied Kyrie eleison where the soloists enter in a meditative duet. The following Gloria in excelsis deo (tr.2) tests the massed choirs with pummelling motorism as the singers spit out the words. The echo is inevitable: Orff. The solo voices return in an idyllic intertwining duet like that in Delius's Once I passed through a populous city. Martellato writing for the choir closes the Gloria.

The centre-point comes in the third track where the undulating movement of Russian Orthodox spirituality is heavy with the fragrance of incense. The choir produce a consistently joyous velvet and auburn glow in the singing of the Crucifixus (tr 3 10.02).

Kilar takes the Brucknerian way of the sincere head-bowed composer, the servant of his message. ---Rob Barnett, www.musicweb-international.com

Missa pro pace jest pierwszym ściśle liturgicznym dziełem kompozytora. Powstała w 2000 roku na zamówienie Kazimierza Korda z okazji jubileuszu stulecia Filharmonii Narodowej. Jest to tradycyjny cykl złożony z części stałych, z wyodrębnioną Dona nobis pacem. Kompozytor nawiązuje w niej do idiomów muzycznych wczesnego średniowiecza, baroku i romantyzmu. Dzieło przyjęte z wielkim entuzjazmem, Bohdan Pociej opisał słowami: głęboko tradycyjna, w średniowiecznej aż pobożności zakorzeniona - jest w swej ekspresji niezwykła. Uderza jej moc wewnętrzna, duchowa, tłumacząca się siłą wiary. Tę moc muzyki prostą i skupioną odczuje każdy jej słuchacz współuczestniczący w mszalnym misterium. Albowiem Wojciech Kilar napisał muzykę religijną do rdzenia - w całkowitej adekwatności środków, języka i stylu do łacińskiego tekstu Mszy. --- pwm.com.pl

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