This album contains a selection of Poland’s greatest living composer’s vocal-instrumental works on religious subjects, representing different artistic responses to the challenge expressed above. Our selection also provides proof of the special importance that the composer attaches to what he considers as “the most difficult of instruments”– namely, the human voice.

Penderecki shot to notoriety in the musical avant-garde in 1960 with the haunting string music of his Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. He remains a doyen of contemporary music alongside Arvo Pärt and the late, lamented Henryk Górecki. Here, the 82-year-old composer conducts his own music with his national orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic. He also gives the triumphant premiere of a powerful new sacred work, Dies Illa, for soloists (Johanna Rusanen, Agnieszka Rehlis and Nikolay Didenko), choir and orchestra, composed to mark the centenary of WWI in 2014.