Krzysztof Penderecki

condition (records/box): VG+ (occasional surface noise) / VG (sticker on front and general wear)    Insert included.

The Philips pressing of the St. Luke Passion - distinct from the EMI/Harmonia Mundi premiere recording (1C 157-99 660/61) in every essential respect. Where the EMI box documents the Cologne Radio Orchestra and Chorus two days after the premiere of 30 March 1966, this is a separate studio recording made with the Kraków Philharmonia chorus and soloists - soprano Stefania Woytowicz, baritone Andrzej Hiolski, bass Bernard Ładysz - again under Henryk Czyż, but in a Polish acoustic with Polish forces. Two recordings of the same work, same conductor, same soloists, two different orchestral contexts: the Cologne Radio ensemble that built the work in rehearsal and gave the world premiere; the Kraków Philharmonia that represented its Polish home.

The distinction matters historically. The Wawel Castle performance, attended by fifteen thousand people in the months following the premiere, had made the St. Luke Passion an act of collective religious witness in a communist state. The Philips recording - made with the Kraków Philharmonia, in Poland, for international release - carried something of that dimension: the work documented on home ground, with the Polish performers whose relationship to the material was not purely musical. Penderecki had composed it in full awareness of the millennial celebrations of Polish Christianity, the premiere date of 30 March 1966 landing within those commemorations. The Philips 2LP box is the primary document of the work as it was heard in Poland. Original pressing.