Modern Energy II

Okay, continuing with my take on twentieth-century classical or concert music that has a clear emphasis on rhythm.  For my first (but certainly not last) venture into the music of Poland, I have to bring in Krzysztof Penderecki.  Here's an unusual composer of our times: one who began as a cutting-edge iconoclast, and then decided that communicative music performed for large audiences in concert halls or churches did indeed have a future.  If, in the process, he adopted a kind of neo-romantic style he certainly did not abandon everything he learned in his earlier, more experimental phase. Even his most recent works clearly belong to the latter half of the 20th century, and not to any earlier time.

Much of Penderecki's earlier music suffers from the problem I outlined in my first post on Modern Energy: the sounds just hit your ears and then lie there, with little or no sense of motion.  This was certainly not true of everything he wrote, far from it.  But it's been in more recent years that rhythm has been allowed to take a more prominent role in some of his music.

To find out what I mean, just put on a recording (there are three already, I think) of his Seventh Symphony, titled The Seven Gates of Jerusalem.   It's an hour-long work for choir, soloists, and large orchestra, a true choral symphony.  Like many of Penderecki's major works, this depends on a religious inspiration, but this time the inspiration is not exclusively Roman Catholic.  Indeed the sixth of seven movements is dominated by a lengthy recitation, in Hebrew, of the story of the valley of dry bones from the Book of Ezekiel in the Bible, where the rhythm of the recitation invokes an atmosphere of ritual chanting.

Actually, the first movement opens right away with a slow, majestic, but definitely metric choral utterance of the words "Magnus dominus", in a tempo that continues to dominate the movement.  The same passage, incidentally, returns at the end of the final seventh movement to bring a sense of structural completion and finality to the whole work.

It's the fifth movement, though, that really speaks to the point of this post.  It's quite clearly in a fast tempo, a tempo driven throughout by a rapidly-moving bass line.  This sort of thing may be anathema to many cutting edge modern "soundscape" composers, but let me tell you, it definitely grabbed this listener's attention!  In the centre of the movement, there's a contrasting slow, peaceful section but the powerful drum and bass rhythms soon return with a strong sense of demonic powers unleashed.  The movement ends with huge choral cries and a gigantic gong stroke that stops the fast music in its tracks and incidentally sets the stage for the beginning of that recitation to follow.

There are many beautiful and intriguing passages in The Seven Gates of Jerusalem but it's that motor-driven scherzo that always stays with me after listening to the whole work.  On Wergo CD, conducted by the composer, in rich full sound, you get as close to a definitive performance as you are ever likely to hear.