Krzysztof Penderecki

condition (records/cover): NM / VG+ (light wear)

The companion volume to Album 1, and the one that contains the First Symphony. The Symphony No.1 (1973), performed here by the London Symphony Orchestra under Krzysztof Penderecki, stands as the summation of the avant-garde period - the longest and most architecturally ambitious work of his sonoristic period, its two movements constructing something that critics at the time could not quite categorize. Running to approximately thirty minutes, it builds a cumulative structure from the textures and densities of the previous decade: not a display of effects but a sustained formal argument in a language that had taken fifteen years to develop. The LSO's participation is part of the historical record: the work was commissioned in connection with Penderecki's tenure at Yale (1973-78), and the collaboration with a major Western orchestra reflected the position he had reached by the early 1970s - Polish by formation, but long since established as a figure of international contemporary music.

With additional works from the same period conducted by the composer with the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Original Argo pressing.