Grigori Zhislin (viola), Tatjana Vassiljeva (cello), Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra/Antoni Wit Naxos 8.582211***

Naxos’s valuable and ongoing Penderecki series here couples the Second Cello Concerto of 1982 and the Viola Concerto of 1983. Penderecki made his reputation in the late 1950s as a master of striking, often high- impact gestures in the language of the postwar avant-garde. The romanticism that infused the Polish composer’s music from the mid-1970s came as a shock, but, actually, the focus on gestural strength remains consistent between the old style and the new. There’s hardly a moment in these two concertos that isn’t effectively conceived, the solo writing gratifyingly forthright, the orchestral sonorities luxuriant. The limitations are in the recursiveness of the musical material and in the way, even in these fine performances, portentous build-ups never quite deliver a satisfying conclusion. See url.ie/af6o