Warsaw Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra, Antoni Wit - Johannes Brahms: Choral Works (2012)

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Warsaw Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra, Antoni Wit - Johannes Brahms: Choral Works (2012)

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This collection of short choral pieces by Johannes Brahms is an unusual one in present times, partly because many of the choral parts are quite demanding. For a choral club in the 19th century, however, it wouldn't have been so novel, and there are great beauties on offer here. After the fetching Ave Maria, Op. 12, the rest of the program is dense, metaphysical, and, with the partial exception of the Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53, concerned with death. There are two funeral songs, and two more about fate, and this is not the warm, humanistic Brahms of the German Requiem, Op. 45. The performances are profound and dignified, and the overall effect uncanny. The Warsaw Philharmonic Choir under choirmaster Henryk Wojnarowski has a gorgeous rich tone that is undiminished by the long lines of the music, and the Alto Rhapsody achieves real grandeur in the hands of contralto Ewa Wolak. But the real credit goes to the Warsaw Philharmonic and conductor Antoni Wit, who keep a consistent level of tension and momentum in difficult, dark material like the somber Nänie, Op. 82 (Funeral Song), a rarely performed late Brahms masterwork. This isn't an album you'd choose for a garden party, but Naxos appears to have struck hold with these Polish musicians in its long period of experimentation with Eastern European ensembles. The engineering, accomplished in Warsaw Philharmonic Hall on a series of dates in early 2010, makes the lines of this intricate music perfectly clear.

Review by James Manheim, Allmusic.com

Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic have been responsible for many of Naxos's finest recordings over the years, and their latest disc, a survey of Brahms's shorter works for chorus and orchestra, more than lives up to expectations. The programme is arranged chronologically, beginning with the Ave Maria of 1858 and closing with the desolate Gesang der Parzen from 1882. In between come the tremendous existential statements of the Alto Rhapsody and Schicksalslied, together with Nänie, one of music's great meditations on mortality. You might not like Wit's approach if you like your Brahms volatile. His conducting is wonderfully judged, if slow, allowing the music to unfold with a measured eloquence that often generates a sense of gathering implacability, in the Schicksalslied above all. Ewa Wolak is the detached soloist in the Rhapsody. It's the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir's contribution, superbly controlled and articulate, that is so sensational here, however. Their performance of Nänie, in particular, is among the most beautiful on disc.

Review by Tim Ashley, The Guardian

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Warsaw Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra, Antoni Wit - Johannes Brahms: Choral Works (2012)

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Warsaw Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra, Antoni Wit - Johannes Brahms: Choral Works (2012)

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Warsaw Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra, Antoni Wit - Johannes Brahms: Choral Works (2012)

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