Krzysztof Penderecki

Krzysztof Penderecki

Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...

wrote his Seventh Symphony, subtitled "Seven Gates of Jerusalem," in 1996 to commemorate the third millennium of the city of Jerusalem. Originally conceived as an oratorio

Oratorio

An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

, this choral symphony

Choral symphony

A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, sometimes with solo vocalists, which in its internal workings and overall musical architecture adheres broadly to symphonic musical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when describing his...

 was premièred in Jerusalem in January 1997; it was only after the first Polish performance two months later that Penderecki decided to call it a symphony. It is written for two soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

s, alto

Alto

Alto is a musical term, derived from the Latin word altus, meaning "high" in Italian, that has several possible interpretations.When designating instruments, "alto" frequently refers to a member of an instrumental family that has the second highest range, below that of the treble or soprano. Hence,...

, tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

, bass

Bass (voice type)

A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...

, narrator, chorus and orchestra.

Movements

The symphony is written in seven movements and lasts approximately 60 minutes:

1. Magnus Dominus et laudabilis nimis in civitate (Great is the Lord, and to be praised)
2. Si oblitus fuero tui, Ierusalem (If I forget you, Jerusalem)
3. De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine (Out of the depths, have I called you, O Lord)
4. Si oblitus fuero tui, Ierusalem (If I forget you, Jerusalem)
5. Lauda, Ierusalem, Dominum (Praise the Lord, Jerusalem)
6. Hajetà alai jad adonài (The hand of the Lord was upon me)
7. Haec dicit Dominus (Thus says the Lord)

Composition

In 1995 Penderecki was commissioned to write a work to commemorate the third millennium of Jerusalem, a city the composer had first visited in 1974 in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War

Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...

. Penderecki decided to write an oratorio titled Seven Gates of Jerusalem (there is an eighth "golden" gate but, according to Jewish tradition, this is reserved for the arrival of the Messiah). Penderecki composed the work between April and December 1996. The work was premiered in Jerusalem on 9 January 1997; the orchestra included members of the Jerusalem Symphony and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestras, conducted by Lorin Maazel

Lorin Maazel

Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...

. The Polish premiere followed on 14 March 1997, under the direction of Kazimierz Kord

Kazimierz Kord

Kazimierz Kord is a Polish conductor. Between 1939 and 1945, he studied piano at the Leningrad Conservatory. He also studied at the Academy of Music in Kraków....

. It was only after the Polish performance that the composer decided to call the work his Seventh Symphony, though he had not yet completed his Sixth Symphony (the latter, though fully worked out in concept, remains a work in progress). The composer has since also written an Eighth Symphony

Symphony No. 8 (Penderecki)

The Symphony No. 8 "Lieder der Vergänglichkeit" by Krzysztof Penderecki is a choral symphony in twelve relatively short movements set to nineteenth and early twentieth-century German poems. The work was completed and premiered in 2005. The symphony has an approximate duration of 35 minutes...

, which like the Seventh is a choral symphony

Choral symphony

A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, sometimes with solo vocalists, which in its internal workings and overall musical architecture adheres broadly to symphonic musical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when describing his...

.

In categorizing the work, James L. Zychowicz writes in his review:

This work also belongs to the choral symphony of the nineteenth century, reminiscent in a sense of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony

Symphony No. 8 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire. Because it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", although the work is often performed with fewer than a...

for its use of voices throughout the work. Similarly, Mahler’s efforts to bring together different texts—in the case of the Eighth Symphony, the Latin hymn “Veni creator spiritus” and the final scene from the second part of Goethe’s Faust, Penderecki combined verses from various psalms, as well as different parts of the Old Testament. Psalms and prophetic texts are brought together in this Jerusalem–inspired work which, in this sense, reflects those aspects of the old city as a place of worship and a locus of prophetic vision. In this sense, it is a return to those seventeenth-century composers, whose works use large forces along with concertato sonorities to prsent biblical texts, but conceived along much larger lines.

Zychowicz adds that while "each of the movements is distinct enough to stand on its own merits, ... when conceived together, [they] form a cohesive symphonic structure."

The text of the symphony is written primarily in Latin, while the sixth movement, "the most dramatic of the entire work," is written in Hebrew; the text in this penultimate movement, taken from the book of Ezekiel, is presented by a speaker.

Significance of the number seven

While the symphony is not a pictoral or descriptive work, the number seven plays a significant part in it. The work is not only written in seven movements but is "pervaded by the number 'seven' at various levels," with an extensive system of seven-note phrases binding the work together, "while the frequent presence of seven notes repeated at a single pitch will be evident even on a first hearing, as also the seven fortissimo chords bringing the seventh and final movement to an end."

Musical manipulation of text

Zychowicz states that the composer's manipulation of text may have been an important factor in shaping the musical structure of the work, as well. By setting selected verses instead of complete psalms, "he gave the text focus and clarity.... Taken together, the verses for the first movement are ... essentially a new text, albeit one redolent of the psalter." Zychowicz cites the last movement as another example of textual manipulation "as Penderecki combines verses from three prophetic books, and then returns to the psalms, eventually bringing back the verse with which the Symphony opened." This manipulation of text, Zychowicz writes, "suggests a level of composition ... that is linked to the musical structure of the work."

Order of text

Magnus Dominus et laudabilis nimis in civitate

Psalm 47 (48):1

Psalm 95 (96):1–3

Psalm 47 (48):1

Psalm 47 (48):13

Psalm 47 (48):1

Si oblitus fuero tui, Ierusalem

Psalm 136 (137):5

De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine

Psalm 129 (130): 1-5

Si oblitus fuero tui, Ierusalem

Psalm 136 (137):5

Isaiah 26:2

Isaiah 52:1

Psalm 136 (137):5

Lauda, Ierusalem, Dominum

Psalm 147:12-14

Hajetà alai jad adonài

Ezekiel 37: 1-10

Haec dicit Dominus

Jeremiah 21:8

Daniel 7:13

Isaiah 59:19

Isaiah 60:1-2

Psalm 47 (48):1

Isaiah 60:11

Psalm 95 (96):1; 2–3

Psalm 47 (48):1

Psalm 47(48):13

Psalm 47(48):1

Psalm 47(48):13