Penderecki: 7 Gates of Jerusalem

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Description of Penderecki: 7 Gates of Jerusalem

Perhaps it's no accident that the very century that allowed the Holocaust to happen makes its farewell with these sounds. Penderecki was commissioned to write The Seven Gates of Jerusalem--his Symphony No. 7, which was premiered in 1997 and is recorded here in a live performance from late 1999--to celebrate the third millennium of the city. The score's title page bears the inscription "to the greater glory of God and to the eternal praise of his holy city." It's a work that not only painfully recalls guilt (as in the second movement) but moves from menace to forgiveness and hope (third movement). "He will be our guide even to the end": with this consoling ray of light from Psalm 48 the composer brings his monumental work to a close.

Without forgetting what has passed (witness the refrain-like curse in the second and fourth movements), the seventh gate of Jerusalem opens up in atonement for the coming century. The Polish composer's choice of texts from four prophets and from the Psalms basically presents a theological program that on the one hand seems curious in the biblical context and on the other suggests traces of a solution for unrelenting guilt. Musicians from Israel and Germany originally christened this symphonic oratorio, while outstanding Polish interpreters come to the fore in this first recording. Fans of newfangled instruments (such as the tubaphones Penderecki adapted from New Zealand aborigines), powerful operatic ensembles, and number mysticism should immediately surrender themselves to the Seven Gates. --Mara Nottelmann-Feil

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