MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Buy through MusicWeb
for £13.50 postage paid World-wide.

Musicweb Purchase button

Juliusz LUCIUK (b.1927)
Gesang am Brunnen — oratorio for soprano, tenor, baritone, mixed choir and chamber orchestra (c.1993)
Bozena Harasimowicz (soprano)
Jacek Laszczkowski (tenor)
Janusz Borowicz (baritone)
Chór Polskiego Radia w Krakowie
Orkiestra Kameralna Polskiego Radia w Krakowie/José Maria Floréncio
rec. live, 17 August 1996, Klosterkirche Loccum, Germany
Texts, but not translated into English
ACTE PRÉALABLE AP0240 [54:51]

Experience Classicsonline



 
Juliusz Luciuk was born in Krakow in 1927. In his oratorio Gesang am Brunnen – ‘Singing by the Spring’, in English - he took poems by fourteen writers from a wide variety of religious backgrounds to give an 'ecumenical coming-together of people.' The desire to create a uniform continuum between these Lutheran, Catholic, Jewish and Buddhist writers’ works, despite the variety of subject matter, creates a lack of polar contrast within the work itself. It emerges as a whole. Whether that stimulates a genuine sense of coherence is something that the individual listener must decide, but it did for me.
 
The oratorio lasts some 55 minutes and is written for soprano, tenor, baritone, mixed choir and chamber orchestra. Many of the writers will be rather obscure, especially for Anglophones. Perhaps the most internationally well-known recent writers are Pablo Neruda (the Chilean poet who took his surname from the Czech writer Jan Neruda), and the Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld. Our old friend The Book of Genesis appears, as does Paul of Tarsus. Martin Luther, too, is represented.
 
The oratorio is immediately attractive and approachable. Luciuk has gone through several stylistic modes since the 1950s but here he has moved away from stylisation and extremes, toward a kind of mainstream. This has resulted in writing that is supportive but not supine, with enough going on instrumentally to keep things both clear and sympathetically supportive of the texts. The mood is generally restrained. I wouldn't want to suggest any kind of similarity, but there were even brief moments that put me in mind of an unlush Canteloube, if such a thing can be imagined. At other points Herbert Howells came to mind. This spirit even embraces post-late Romanticism, if I can call it that, though it never embraces the kind of writing that Pärt and Gorecki and their followers have fashioned in religious music.
 
Much here is warm and gentle, and not anguished. There is no mid-period Penderecki ethos. But there is attractive string colour, good opportunities for the three solo singers (all good), some consoling moments - there is an especially beguiling duet - and chances for vocal melismas tinged with ecstasy. The culminatory trio is buoyed by string wash and little bubbly brass.
 
This is a live performance, given in 1996, and one greeted with generous applause. It offers an interesting slant on yet another strand of contemporary Polish religious music.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Error processing SSI file