Antoni Wit - The Best of Antoni Wit (2024)

Veteran conductor Antoni Wit has been a major champion of Polish contemporary music but also has a wide repertory of music from many countries. He was conductor of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Katowice, and then the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra for many years.
Wit (pronounced Vit) was born in Kraków, Poland, on February 7, 1944. He attended the Kraków Academy of Music (then the State Higher Academy of Music), studying conducting with Henryk Czyż and composition with Krzysztof Penderecki. After graduating in 1967, he went on to serve as assistant to Witold Rowicki at the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra while earning a law degree at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 1969. He benefited from relatively liberal Polish travel policies and was able to study conducting in Paris with Pierre Dervaux at the Ecole Normale de Musique and composition privately with the famed teacher Nadia Boulanger. Wit went on to attend conducting classes at the Tanglewood Music Center in the U.S. with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Seiji Ozawa in 1973. He then became the conductor and artistic director of the Pomeranian Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland from 1974 to 1977, moving on from 1977 to 1983 to the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra and Chorus. During this period, he began a long track record of conducting new Polish music, leading the premiere of Penderecki's Lacrimosa in 1980.
Tracklist
01. Konig der letzten Tage (King of the Last Days): Intrada
02. 3 Pieces in Old Style: No. 1, Aria
03. Little Suite: Piosenka (Song)
04. Aus aller Herren Landern, Op. 23: V. Polish: Allegro con fuoco (from Foreign Lands)
05. Stabat Mater, Op. 53: Chrystus niech mi bedzie grodem (Christe, cum sit hinc exire)
06. Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, "Symfonia piesni zalosnych" (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs): Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"
07. Halka: Mazurka
08. Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 22: II. Romance. Andante non troppo
09. Symphony No. 8, Op. 83, "Tveti Pol'shi" (Polish Flowers): VI. Lekcja[Lesson]
10. Má vlast, JB 1:112: No. 2, Vltava (My Country: Moldau)
11. Czech Suite, Op. 39, B. 93: V. Finale. Presto
12. Odwieczne piesni (Eternal Songs), Op. 10: III. Piesn o wszechbycie[Song of Eternity]
13. Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64, TH 29: III. Waltz. Allegro moderato
14. Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18: I. Moderato
15. Mša glagolskaja (Glagolitic Mass), JW III:9[final version]: Slava[Gloria][Soprano, Tenor, Chorus]
16. Turangalila-symphonie: V. Joie du sang des etoiles
17. Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 107: I. Allegretto
18. Symphony No. 2 in C Minor "Resurrection": IV. Urlicht. Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht
19. Bram Stoker's Dracula: Mina : Elizabeth
20. Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21: Iii. Allegretto vivace
21. Lacrimosa
22. Symphony No. 3: Passacaglia - Allegro moderato
23. Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 17: II. Romanza. Andante
24. Mandragora, Op. 43, Scene 2