The forthcoming album pairing works by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki and the works they inspired by composer/guitarist Jonny Greenwood is due out on Nonesuch on March 13. The album, comprising Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and Polymorphia (for 48 strings) and Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver and 48 Responses to Polymorphia, is featured on the latest episode of NPR's All Songs Considered.

NPR Classical producer Tom Huizenga, host of NPR's classical music blog Deceptive Cadence, brings the new album to the show to play for host Bob Boilen and producer Robin Hilton. After all three praise Greenwood's 2007 score to the film There Will Be Blood, with Huizenga calling it "a complete and wonderful homage to his hero Penderecki," they listen to an excerpt from Penderecki's Polymorphia followed by the final movement from the Greenwood piece it inspired: 48 Responses to Polymorphia.

Hilton, reacting with wonderment, exclaims: "You hear that, and I think: everything created by a synthesizer is just so irrelevant and boring now. You hear something that real and organic and knowing that it could be performed live with these string instruments, I mean, that's amazing to me."

"It's interesting that you should mention that," Huizenga replies, "because in a recent article in one of the British papers, Greenwood talks just about that very same thing, that even though we think of him as this electronic genius with Radiohead and what he does, he's just saying now, that's fine, but the coolest thing in the world is to be in front of an orchestra firing on all cylinders and just creating this kind of stuff."

"What a powerful feeling," says Hilton.

About the album, Huizenga concludes: "What a gas."

Listen to the latest episode of All Songs Considered and hear the aforementioned pieces at npr.org.

The article Huizenga is likely referencing on the show is the recent Guardian piece for which music writer Tom Service spoke with both Greenwood and Pendericki about the differences between orchestral and electronic music and the origins of this current project that pairs these two composers.

"Greenwood doesn't need any false modesty when it comes to his classical pieces," writes Service. "His 48 Responses isn't just a good piece for a composer who is more used to the studio, it is a dazzlingly imaginative, gripping and novel work, full stop. Don't just take my word for it: Penderecki thinks so too: 'None of what Jonny does is a copy of what I have done. Even his notation is different from mine. He does things that I haven't done, and has gone in a different direction using some elements of my music. He is very gifted. I like his music very much.'" Read the article at guardian.co.uk.

To pre-order a copy of the album, head to the Nonesuch Store now.