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Born in 1933 in D´bica. His first
teacher of composition was Franciszek Sko1yszewski. In 1954 he was
admitted to the State Higher School of Music in Kraków where he studied
composition with Artur Malawski and, on Malawski1s death, with Stanis1aw
Wiechowicz. In 1960 he captured the attention of Western critics with
Anaklasis, performed at the Donaueschingen Festival under the direction of
Hans Rosbaud. Penderecki1s international position was consolidated in the
1960s, thanks to such pieces as Dimensions of Time and Silence, Threnody
to the Victims of Hiroshima, Polymorphia, Fluorescences, String Quartet
No. 1, Dies irae and Stabat Mater. The St Luke Passion brought Penderecki
the Great Arts Award of the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia (1966) and the
Prix Italia in 1967. In the same year, he was also awarded the Sibelius
Gold Medal.
Towards the end of the 1960s he began work on the opera The Devils of
Loudun. After its premiere at the Hamburg Staatsoper in 1969, it was
successfully performed at theatres throughout the world, as were the
composer1s three successive operas: Paradise Lost (premiered in Chicago,
1978), Die Schwarze Maske (premiered at the Salzburg Festival, 1986) and
Ubu Rex (premiered at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, 1991).
In 1996 the performance of The Seven Gates of Jerusalem, commissioned by
the city of Jerusalem, was one of the highlights of the celebrations of
the city1s 3000th anniversary.
>From 1973 to 1978 Penderecki lectured at Yale University in New Haven.
He served as Rector of the Music Academy in Cracow (198287). Since 1973
he has also developed a career as a conductor. Penderecki1s long list of
honours includes the Herder Prize (1977), the Sibelius Prize (1983), the
Premio Lorenzo Magnifico (1985), the Award of the Karl Wolff Foundation in
Israel (1987), the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal
Republic of Germany (1990), the title of Chevalier de Saint Georges
(1990), the Grawemeyer Award from the
University of Louisville (1992), the Commander1s Cross with Star of
Polonia Restituta (1993), the Austrian honorary distinction for
achievements in science and arts (1994) the unesco International Music
Council Award (1994). In 1998 he was honoured with the Composition Award
of the Association for the Promotion of European Industry and Trade, in
2000 he received the Cannes Classical Award as OThe Best Living Composer
of the Year1. In 2002 he was honoured by the Bavarian Catholic Academy
with the R. Guardini Award (its former recipients include Carl Orff and
Richard Weizsaecker).
Penderecki has received honorary doctorates from numerous universities,
including those in Belgrade, Bordeaux, Glasgow, Leuven, Madrid, Pittsburgh,
PoznaY, Rochester, Warsaw, Washington (Georgetown University), as well as
the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and the St. Olaf College in
Northfield (Minnesota). He is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of
Music in London, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the
Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien in Stockholm, and the Akademie der Künste
in Berlin.
He is also Honorary Professor of the Conservatory in Beijing.
Penderecki1s book, The Labyrinth of Time. Five Addresses for the End of
the Millennium, was published in Polish (Warsaw, OPresspublica1, 1997) and
in English (Chapel Hill, 1998).
Selected works (since 1979): Symphony
No. 2 OChristmas1 (197980), Te Deum for solo voices, two choirs and
orchestra (197980), Concerto per violoncello ed orchestra No. 2 (1982),
Concerto per viola ed orchestra (1983), Polish Requiem for solo voices,
choir and orchestra (198084, new version 1993), Die Schwarze Maske,
opera after Gerhart Hauptmann (198486), Per Slava for solo cello (198586),
Izhe cheruvimi / Song of Cherubims for a cappella choir (1987), Symphony
No. 3 (198895), Passacaglia for orchestra (1988), Der unterbrochene
Gedanke for string quartet (1988), Adagio. Symphony No. 4 (1989), Ubu Rex,
opera buffa after Alfred Jarry (199091), String Trio (199091),
Sinfonietta per archi (1992), Symphony No. 5 (1992), Concerto per flauto
ed orchestra da camera (1992), Metamorphosen. Violin Concerto No. 2 (199295),
Quartet for Clarinet and String Trio (1993), Sinfonietta no. 2 per
clarinetto ed archi (1994), Entrata for brass instruments and timpani
(1994), Divertimento per violoncello solo (1994), Concerto per violino ed
orchestra No. 2 (199295), Concerto per clarinetto ed orchestra da camera
(199295), Seven Gates of Jerusalem for soloists, reciter, three mixed
choirs and orchestra (1996), Serenade for String Orchestra (199697),
Hymne an den heiligen Daniel OSlava svjatamu dlinnju knazju moskovskamu1
for choir and wind instruments (1997), Credo for soloists, children1s
choir, mixed choir and symphony orchestra (1998), Musik für Blockflöten,
Marimbaphon und Streicher (2000), Sextet for Violin, Viola, Cello,
Clarinet, Horn and Piano (2000), Concerto grosso for three cellos and
orchestra (200001), Piano Concerto OResurrection1 (200102).
String Quartet No. 1
The piece was written shortly after Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima,
at a time when Penderecki was aggressively exploring the musical use of
unconventional sonic resources, particularly those derived from string
instruments. He used many of the same techniques, and others, in the more
transparent quarter medium. The result was one of the most novel
formulations of string quartet sound. In addition to a full array of more
or less established playing techniques arco, sul ponticello, col legno,
pizzicato, and glissando the score calls for playing between the bridge
and tailpiece; bowing the tailpiece itself; striking both the strings and
the body of the instrument with the wood portion of the bow or with the
hand; different speeds of vibrato, as well as non-vibrato playing; and
rapid, uneven tremolo. Penderecki uses all these devices in kaleidoscopic
succession during the initial section of the piece, where loosely
coordinated bursts of sound from the four instruments create a pointillist
texture of tremendous vitality. This extraordinary barrage eventually
gives way to its antithesis; sustained sonorities alternately
motionless or shimmering with different types of vibrato and tremolo
forming flat, monochromatic aural fabrics. The juxtaposition of these two
very distinct types of music establishes a riveting dialectic during the
final pages of the piece, with statis and quiet having the last word.
The piece was premiered by the La Salle Quartet in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano
The composition was commissioned by Annie-Sophie Mutter and is dedicated
to her. It is a large-scale work in five symmetrically arranged movements.
A central Nocturne is contained within two fast movements, effectively
scherzos, and the whole is framed by two comparatively brief slower
movements.
The violin1s opening monologue states the semitone-dominated material
which will be freely transformed throughout the sonata. Characteristically,
this accumulates towards an explosive climax. The first scherzo follows
without a break. Its basic spiky character shades into animation,
agitation and caprice, but is always held in check by its basis in a clear
G minor.
The lengthy Nocturne is rooted in a darkly chromatic C minor. Both
instruments spin out increasingly elaborate figuration, until the piano
emerges with a nervy, continuously accelerating waltz. A brutal, arriving
scherzo follows, fixated on the repeated Ds heard at the opening. Like the
first movement this eventually boils over into a violent gestural climax.
Trilled Ds on the violin link into the final movement, which begins as a
reminiscence of the opening Larghetto, but moves into a free recall of the
Nocturne and, at the end, of its C minor tonality.
David Fanning
String Quartet No. 2
It can be said that this quartet picks up where the first left off. After
an initial loud chord, we hear the sort of sustained sonorities similar to
those at the close of the First Quartet. Here, too, Penderecki is intent
on exploring new types of string sonority. He leaves behind, however, the
percussive sounds that were so prominent in the First String Quartet,
delving instead into novel effects produced by the conjunction of bow and
string. These include an essentially melodic use of vibrato and glissando,
lines entailing precisely indicated quarter-tones and rapidly flowing
scorrevole (in a flowing style), yielding a flickering texture of
high-speed counterpoint. Characteristic of the work1s aural atmosphere is
an ethereal sound produced by harmonics played against sustained tones
whistled by the four players. In this piece, too, Penderecki shapes the
form in a masterful way, basing it on a simple succession of three parts:
slowfastslow. The work dies away with a glissando as the cellist
turning the tuning peg of his lowest string, slowly lowering the pitch.
String Quartet No. 2 was premiered by the Parrenin Quartet in Berlin in
1970.
Sextet for Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello,
Clarinet and Horn
Chamber music plays an ever-expanding part in Krzysztof Pende-recki1s
oeuvre of the last decade. The composer himself described this phenomenon
in 1993: OToday, having gone through the post-Romantic lesson, and having
exhausted the potential of postmodern thinking, I see my artistic ideal in
claritas. I turn to chamber music in the belief that more can be said
softly, condensed into the tone of three or four instruments. This escape
into musical privacy might be an answer of sorts to our own fin de si…cle,
to the acceleration of history and to the turmoil of overturned norms of
culture, ethics, and politics1. Penderecki described his Clarinet Quartet
written at the time as Oa meeting of four close friends, all of whom have
something to say. But, since they know each other so well, nothing has to
be said too plainly1.
The same attitude to chamber music is manifest in Penderecki1s Sextet for
Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, Clarinet and Horn. He clearly relates to the
great tradition of joyful shared music-making in the chamber music of
Mozart, Schubert, or Brahms.
Penderecki1s poetic universe of musical narration is dominated by
a dialogue between personae represented by the individual instruments.
They either speak in a single voice or present differing points of view.
In their conversations, discussions, arguments, or bantering, they present
musical ideas and characters, motives and themes in an often masterly use
of the counterpoint in varied types of instrumental textures. The internal
integration of the musical material creates the image of a single field
for this musical game. At the same time, the clear and condensed form of
the piece drives home the pure beauty of artistic order.
The music of the Sextet is characteristic in its restraint of means
employed, in its rhythmical expressiveness, in the lightness, lucidity,
and sophistication of its counterpointed system of the individual
instruments; also, in its clear form and variety of expression. It offers
the twinkling humour of scherzo themes and jesting, ironic, or even
grotesque, allusions to characteristic dance rhythms, through multi-hued
lyricism of concealed emotion to a nostalgic concentration on the inner
world of a person conscious of his or her transience.
Krzysztof Penderecki1s Sextet consists of two movements: Allegro moderato
and Larghetto.
The dynamic Allegro moderato is maintained in vigorous and expressive time,
with frequent asymmetric rhythm structures (a prevalence of the staccato).
It begins with an accented and rest-separated repetition of a flat in the
piano1s bass, which sets the centre of reference of the movement. Returns
and pitch shifts of this motive (with different rhythm models) establish
the general Otonal1 plan of this section
(a flat, d, f, d, a flat, d). This approach also returns in the repetition
of accented chords, imparting on the narration a joyful dancing aura, and
no wonder: note repetitions as a significant musical gesture (in its
various functions) are part of the composer1s basic repertoire of musical
language means. The primary theme of a misleading simplicity and a
jocular, somewhat capricious character is introduced by the clarinet
and contains motives from which other musical ideas of the first movement
will derive. At bars 157-8, a lyrical-declamatory melodic phrase will
appear in punctuated rhythm to anticipate the main theme of the second
movement.
The extensive Larghetto contrasts in time and character with its
predecessor and is the main part of the Sextet. Its singular and solemn
theme, declamatory and expressive, is based on a falling sequence of minor
seconds enhanced with a repetitive iambic rhythm pattern. It is presented
in various instruments and undergoes refined development and
transformation. Of particular note is the original part of the piano,
different from its usual emploi. Repeated notes or dominating single-voice
(or octave) recitative parts and figures of motion come side-by-side with
segments set on several planes. Towards the end,
a peculiar retrospection applies a different metaphysical perspective;
dematerialised, echoing motives of nostalgia vanish into silence.
The premiere of the Sextet took place at Vienna1s Musikverein on
6 June 2000. It was performed by Dmitri Alexeev (piano), Julian Rachlin (violin),
Yuri Bashmet (viola), Mstislav Rostropovich (cello), Paul Meyer (clarinet),
and Radovan Vlatkovic (horn).
Regina Ch1opicka
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