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Krzysztof Penderecki

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Krzysztof Penderecki was a Polish composer and conductor, born in Dębica in 1933 and died in 2020. He studied violin and then composition at the music academy in Kraków, where he also began teaching after graduating in 1958. In 1959 he first attracted international attention at the Warsaw Autumn festival. His breakthrough came with Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, a piece for string orchestra from 1960.

Music and breakthrough

In his early work Penderecki used the orchestra as a source of sound. Strings play dense tone clusters, glissandi and unconventional playing techniques, and in other pieces even typewriters and gongs can be heard. His notation abandoned the ordinary stave and drew sounds that change. At the same time he wrote religious music, such as the St Luke Passion of 1963 to 1966, which combines avant-garde language with Baroque forms. Such works came into being in communist Eastern Europe.

Influence

In the mid-1970s, when he was a professor at Yale, he chose a more traditional and tonal sound. His Polish Requiem grew out of a piece for Solidarity in Gdańsk. Penderecki also wrote music for film and theatre. His work showed that an orchestra could produce new and unsettling sounds.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima and notice how the strings produce mainly sound rather than melody. Can you hear the dense clouds of sound, the glissandi and the high, piercing notes?

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Mentioned in other articles

See also

Categories: ArtistsSound masses: Xenakis, Ligeti and PendereckiModernism, atonality and avant-garde