‘Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra’

With his 1926 Stabat Mater, Karol Szymanowski joins a prestigious line of composers who have set the anonymous mediaeval text to music: Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, Rossini, Schubert and Verdi. Szymanowski has updated the tradition by using a Polish translation of the Latin text and adding Polish folk melodies to the religious piece. The three soloists never sing together, as if Mary’s sorrow could not yet be shared, and only come together in the closing section. This vocal masterpiece by Szymanowski is supplemented with his own Fourth Symphony and two works by his compatriots: the Suita for string orchestra by Grażyna Bacewicz – also dating from the 1930s – and Krzysztof Penderecki’s Ciaconne from 2005.