Eleven years after I first heard the music, I have gotten my hands on the full 1973 recording of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Utrenja (aka Jutrznia/Utrenya) as composed by Andrzej Markowski. This is harder than you might think as the last release of this particular recording was on CD in 1989 on the Polskie Nagrania label. Folks on Amazon are selling used copies ranging from $75 to $200. I was lucky to find a $20 copy sold by PolishJazz.com (note: this is not jazz).

I first heard bits and pieces of this work in The Shining when I first saw it in tenth grade. The movie only uses about 4 minutes of the 75-minute work and I’ve always wanted to hear the rest. Tracking down such a rare recording was enough to make me wet myself.

I had never been exposed to darker and more ominous classical works before I first heard Utrenja, so you could say that Penderecki’s music is really what turned me on to classical. The powerful, darker stuff is my cup of tea, and Markowski’s version is just the way I like it.