Concert Review: Warsaw Philharmonic Choir

Most of the pieces, conducted by Henryk Wojnarowski, sounded close to the European mainstream of 19th century Romantic music.

By URY EPPSTEIN
Israel Festival Warsaw Philharmonic Choir YMCA Auditorium Jerusalem June 14 The Warsaw Philharmonic Choir made a significant contribution of works by Polish composers largely unknown here - Moniuszko, Gorecki, Swider, Zielenski - to the Israel Festival. Most of the pieces, conducted by Henryk Wojnarowski, sounded close to the European mainstream of 19th century Romantic music. Emphasis was placed predominantly on listener-friendly melodiousness and appealing harmonies. A notable exception was Marion Sawa's Gloria Tibi Trinitas that renounced sweet-sounding melodies for the sake of relating the voices to the text, its meanings and accentuations. Melodic predictability was thus avoided by adopting a definitely personal, individualistic and therefore interesting style. The stingy editing of the program notes did not even provide these unknown composers' basic biographic dates, which was regrettable. On more familiar ground, the choir presented better-known works from the Romantic repertoire in the program's second part. This allowed one to appreciate the choir's formidable qualities and capacities. Its impeccably pure intonation was a joy to hear, and so were the full, rich sound and the perfect cohesion of its tutti singing. Delicate, minutely measured nuances of dynamics ranged from subtle softness to a powerful forte, without ever gliding into robust or shrill shouting. The choir demonstrated how thoroughly well-rehearsed it was when the conductor stepped aside during the encore and had the choir sing on its own - leaving all the finest nuances perfectly intact.