Krzysztof Penderecki

condition (records/cover): NM / NM

The German EMI Electrola pressing of the Second Symphony, completing the set of four editions of the work held in the catalog: Muza (SX 2310), Adès (ADW 7100), and this one. In the West German market, where Penderecki had been a presence since the premiere of the St. Luke Passion in Münster in 1966 and where his music was followed with particular attention through the 1970s and 80s, an EMI Electrola pressing of the Christmas Symphony carried a specific resonance. The symphony's reception history is inseparable from its Polish context - the Solidarity era, the election of John Paul II, the complex relationship between a Catholic nation and a communist state - but the German audience heard something else in it as well: a major European composer's decisive statement about where the music was going, after years of expecting it to remain where it had been. The details of the work itself appear in the Muza entry (SX 2310). Original EMI Electrola pressing.