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Krzysztof Penderecki
(, born November 23, 1933 in Debica) is a Polish composer and conductor of classical music.
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PENDERECKI TICKETS
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Career
Early years
After taking private composition lessons with
Franciszek Skolyszewski, Penderecki studied music at Krakow University and the
Academy of Music in Krakow under
Artur Malawski and
Stanislaw Wiechowicz. Having graduated in 1958, he took up a teaching post at the Academy. Penderecki's early works show the influence of
Anton Webern and
Pierre Boulez (he has also been influenced by
Igor Stravinsky). Penderecki's international recognition began in 1959 at the Warsaw Autumn Festival with the premieres of the works
Strophen
,
Psalms of David
, and
Emanations
, but the piece that truly brought him to international attention was
Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
(see
threnody and
atmoic bombing of Hiroshima), written for 52
string instruments. In it, Penderecki makes use of extended instrumental techniques (for example, playing on the "wrong" side of the bridge, bowing on the tailpiece). There are many novel textures in the work, which makes great use of
tone clusters (many notes close together played at the same time). The work was originally titled
8' 37"
, perhaps in a nod to
John Cage, but after hearing the piece, Penderecki chose to dedicate it to the victims of Hiroshima.
Fluorescences
followed a year after, increasing the orchestral density by adding more wind and brass and an enormous percussion section of 32 instruments for six players, which included a Mexican güiro, typewriters, gongs and other exotic non-standard instruments. The piece was composed for the Donaueschingen Contemporary Music Festival of 1962, and its performance was regarded as highly provocative and controversial. Penderecki's intentions at this stage were quite Cagean: 'All I'm interested in is liberating sound beyond all tradition'.
[1] This preoccupation with sound culminated in
De Natura Sonoris I
, a piece which frequently called upon the orchestra to use non-standard playing techniques to produce different sounds and colours, often very different in character. A sequel to the original was composed in 1971, with a more limited orchestra, and it incorporates more elements of post-
Romanticism than its predecessor. This foreshadowed Penderecki's renunciation of the avant-garde in the mid-1970s, although both pieces feature dramatic glissandos, dense tone clusters, and a use of harmonics, and unusual instruments (the
musical saw features in the second piece).
The St. Luke Passion
Year
| Song title
| Work
| Instrumentation
|
1968:
| "Miserere mei, Deus" Listen (help·info)
| Saint Luke Passion
| Chorus
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The
St. Luke Passion
(1963–66) brought Penderecki further popular acclaim, not least because it was a major and devoutly religious work, written in an avant-garde musical language, composed within Communist Eastern Europe. Western audiences saw it as a snub to the Soviet authorities and were keen to give it their support. Various different musical styles can be seen in the piece. The experimental textures, such as were seen in the
Threnody
, are balanced by the
baroque form of the work and the occasional use of more traditional
harmonic and
melodic writing. Penderecki makes use of
serialism in this piece, and one of the tone rows he uses includes the
BACH motif, which acts as a bridge between the conventional and more experimental elements. The Stabat Mater section towards the end of the piece concludes on a simple major
chord of D major, and this gesture is repeated at the very end of the work, which finishes on a triumphant E major chord. These are the only tonal harmonies in the work, and both come as a surprise to the listener; Penderecki's use of tonal triads such as these remains a controversial aspect of the work.
Penderecki continued to write pieces that explored the sacred in music, such as
Dies Irae, a version of the
Magnificat
, and
Canticum Canticorum
, a song of songs for chorus and orchestra from the early seventies.
1970s-present
Around the mid-1970s, while he was a professor at the
Yale School of Music [2] Penderecki's style began to change. The
Violin Concerto No. 1 largely leaves behind the dense tone clusters with which he had been associated, and instead focuses on two
melodic intervals: the
semitone and the
tritone. Some commentators went so far as to compare this new direction to
Anton Bruckner. This direction continued with the Symphony No. 2,
Christmas
(1980), which is rather straightforward from a harmonic and melodic standpoint for a composer who had been one of the most experimental in Europe. It makes frequent use of the tune of the
Christmas carol Silent Night
.
Penderecki explained his shift by stating that he had come to feel that the experimentation of the avant-garde had gone too far from the expressive, non-formal qualities of Western music: 'The avant-garde gave one an illusion of universalism. The musical world of
Stockhausen,
Nono, Boulez and Cage was for us, the young - hemmed in by the aesthetics of socialist realism, then the official canon in our country - a liberation...I was quick to realise however, that this novelty, this experimentation and formal speculation, is more destructive than constructive; I realised the Utopian quality of its Promethean tone'. Penderecki concluded that he was 'saved from the avant-garde snare of formalism by a return to tradition'.
In 1980, Penderecki was commissioned by
Solidarity to compose a piece to accompany the unveiling of a statue at the
Gdansk shipyards to commemorate those killed at anti-government riots there in 1970. Penderecki responded with the
Lacrimosa
, which he later expanded into one of the best known works of his later period, the
Polish Requiem
(1980-84, revised 1993). Here again the harmonies are quite lush, although there are moments which evoke his earlier work in the 1960s. The tendency in recent years has been towards more traditionally conceived tonal constructs, as seen in works like the
Cello Concerto No. 2 and the
Credo
.
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Some of Penderecki's music has been adapted for film soundtracks.
The Shining
(1980) features six pieces of Penderecki's music:
Utrenja, The Awakening of Jacob, De Natura Sonoris No. 1, De Natura Sonoris No. 2, Kanon
and
Polymorphia
.
The Exorcist
(1973) features
Polymorphia
as well as his String Quartet and
Kanon For Orchestra and Tape
; fragments of the Cello Concerto and
The Devils of Loudun
are also used in the film. Writing about
The Exorcist
, the film critic for
The New Republic
wrote "even the music is faultless, most of it by Krzysztof Penderecki, who at last is where he belongs."
[3] David Lynch has used Penderecki's music in the soundtracks of the movies
Wild at Heart
(1990) and
Inland Empire
(2006). Penderecki's piece,
Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
, was also used during one of the final sequences in the film
Children of Men.
In 2001, Penderecki's
Credo
received the
Grammy Award for best choral performance for the world-premiere recording made by the
Oregon Bach Festival, which commissioned the piece. The same year, Penderecki was awarded with the
Prince of Asturias Prize in Spain, one of the highest honours given in Spain to individuals, entities, organizations or others from around the world who make notable achievements in the sciences, arts, humanities, or public affairs. Penderecki received an honorary doctorate from the
Seoul National University, Korea in 2005, as well as from the
University of Münster, Germany in 2006. His notable students include
Chester Biscardi and
Walter Mays.
Andrzej Wajda used some fragments of Penderecki's works in the 2007 film "
Katyn".
Work
References
- Orchestral Works Vol 1 Liner Notes
- Biography on Krakow 2000
- liner notes for ''The Exorcist: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack'', Warner Bros. 16177-00-CD, 1998