Szymanowski, Stabat Mater, Symphony no.3, Litany to the Virgin Mary, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir and soloists/Kapszyk (Warner Classics)
We should be wary of reviews because what the reviewer says in their words might not be what those words convey to us in ours. The prime example for me, many years ago now, was a disc of Rautavaara which it is not for me to say was no good but it was not what I was led to expect and it doesn't get played at all these days with so much competition up against it.
But one wouldn't take out a subscription to the foremost, venerable magazine of music reviews if one wasn't going to buy some of its highest recommendations, through the filtering process of one's own understanding.
I thought perhaps I already had a recording of Szymanowski's Stabat Mater. It is necessary to check sometimes. But, admirer of him though I am, I found no more than the Violin Concertos which weren't Szymanowski enough, not lush, lyrical and indulgently late, late Romantic enough. But, failed librarian as I am, I am no adept at filing things accurately. There must be more than that. Perhaps there isn't. And there, right next to him, is Poulenc with his Stabat Mater. That must be what I was thinking of. Rightly or wrongly, I think of them as similar.
Whether or not this is quite the Szymanowski I was expecting this time doesn't matter. It sometimes is but if and when it isn't, it is powerful stuff that won't lend itself to background listening while reading and Chopin tinkles along as a delightful distraction from the onset of silence. I'm tempted to say I can see where Gorecki found the basis of his monumental Symphony no. 3 and, whatever Polish-Russian political relations were like at the time of writing, there's big bass contributions from Artur Rucinski and if Gorecki owes it any debt then this Stabat Mater, from 1926, was presumably written with knowledge of Rachmanninov's awesome Vespers, All Night Vigil, from 1915 because, rather than the gentler lyricism I was anticipating, and am in receipt of plenty of, there's much more of the vast, Russian canopy about it than anything frail or merely gorgeous.
Not for the first time in recent weeks, here is a booklet in Polish and English, never mind the German or French, and why would it not be. That is not ominous or full of foreboding but the music certainly is. For a moment, one is allowed to think we can relax in something like Ravel's dreamier excesses but it's never for long and, always likely to be impressed by such a thing as I am, whether it is in Buxtehude or James MacMillan, he puts a lone, high register violin line in before stretching the canvas to something overpoweringly enormous.
It is still not the Szymanowski I thought I was buying and I'm beginning to wonder what it was that formed such an impression but, rather than being somewhat less than I'd hoped for, the Stabat Mater and Litany at least are something more.
I might have to reserve judgement on the Symphony as the term itself, especially when 'choral' parts are involved, has tended to lead composers into excess and this might be a case in point but, given the extraordinary first two pieces that will have to be returned to for some time, it will be a decision that eventually makes itself whether one stays for the extravagant finale.
Enough can be enough, as Theresa May recently said, somewhat inappropriately.
