Penderecki's Eighth Symphony, which here receives its world première recording, is a setting of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German poems entitled Lieder der Vergänglichkeit (Songs of Transience). Mankind's journey though life, as reflected in the decay and rebirth of the natural world, underlies its twelve movements. Scored for not dissimilar forces, the oratorio Dies irae is a very different proposition, commissioned to mark the unveiling of the International Monument to the Victims of Fascism at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Composed in 1958 and given its première at Kraków in September the following year, Aus den Psalmen Davids was one of the works that marked Penderecki's arrival on the new music scene.