Krzysztof Penderecki

Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (1933–2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. He is best remembered for pieces such as *Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima*, *Symphony No. 3*, the *St Luke Passion*, *Polish Requiem*, *Anaklasis*, and *Utrenja*. His body of work spans five operas, eight symphonies, various orchestral compositions, instrumental concertos, choral works—often on religious themes—and chamber and instrumental pieces.

After finishing his studies at the Academy of Music in Kraków, Penderecki stayed on as a teacher. His career as a composer took off in 1959 at the Warsaw Autumn festival. Both *Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima*, written for string orchestra, and the choral *St. Luke Passion* earned widespread acclaim. His first opera, *The Devils of Loudun*, never found success, despite several revisions. In the mid-1970s, he joined the faculty at the Yale School of Music. Around this time, his compositional style shifted; his first violin concerto, for instance, centered on the semitone and tritone. The *Polish Requiem* was composed during the 1980s and later expanded in 1993 and 2005.

Penderecki collected numerous major awards: the Prix Italia in 1967 and 1968, the Wihuri Sibelius Prize in 1983, four Grammy Awards (1987, 1998 twice, and 2017), the Wolf Prize in Arts in 1987, and the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1992. In 2012, Sean Michaels of *The Guardian* described him as “arguably Poland’s greatest living composer.” In 2020, his alma mater, the Academy of Music in Kraków, was renamed in his honor.

Penderecki was born on 23 November 1933 in Dębica to Zofia and Tadeusz Penderecki, a lawyer. His paternal grandfather, Michał Penderecki, came from the village of Tenetnyky near Rohatyn (now in Ukraine) and belonged to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic church. Michał married Stefania Szylkiewicz, who was of Armenian origin from Stanislau (today Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine); they later moved to Dębica. The rest of the Penderecki family kept their Ukrainian identity, and some still live in the ancestral village. Krzysztof met them during visits to Ukraine in the 1990s. On his mother’s side, his grandfather Robert Berger was a talented painter and, at the time of Penderecki’s birth, director of the local bank. Robert’s father, Johann, a German Protestant, had moved to Dębica from Breslau (now Wrocław) in the mid-19th century; out of love for his wife, he converted to Catholicism.

Krzysztof was the youngest of three children. His sister, Barbara, married a mining engineer; his older brother, Janusz, was studying law and medicine when Krzysztof was born. Their father, Tadeusz, played violin and piano. When World War II broke out in 1939, the family left their apartment because the Ministry of Food took it over. After the war, Penderecki started grammar school in 1946. He began violin lessons with Stanisław Darłak, Dębica’s military bandmaster, who after the war organized an orchestra for the local music society. After finishing grammar school, Penderecki moved to Kraków in 1951 to attend Jagiellonian University. He studied violin with Stanisław Tawroszewicz and music theory with Franciszek Skołyszewski. In 1954, he entered the Academy of Music in Kraków; after his first year of violin studies, he focused entirely on composition. His main teacher there was Artur Malawski, a composer known for choral and orchestral works, chamber music, and songs. After Malawski died in 1957, Penderecki continued lessons with Stanisław Wiechowicz, a composer known mainly for choral works. The 1956 overthrow of Stalinism in Poland had by then lifted strict cultural censorship, opening a wave of creativity.

After graduating from the Academy in 1958, Penderecki took a teaching post there. His early works show the influence of Anton Webern, Pierre Boulez, and Igor Stravinsky. International recognition came in 1959 at the Warsaw Autumn festival with the premieres of *Strophen*, *Psalms of David*, and *Emanations*, but the piece that truly brought him global attention was *Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima* (1960), written for 52 string instruments. It uses extended techniques—playing behind the bridge, bowing on the tailpiece—and many novel textures, including extensive tone clusters. He originally titled the work *8' 37"*, but later dedicated it to the victims of Hiroshima. *Fluorescences* followed a year later, increasing orchestral density with more winds, brass, and a huge percussion section of 32 instruments for six players, including a Mexican güiro, typewriters, and gongs. It was composed for the 1962 Donaueschingen Festival of contemporary music, and its performance was considered provocative and controversial. The score itself looked revolutionary: Penderecki’s graphic notation rejected traditional notes on a staff, instead representing music as morphing sounds. His intentions at this stage were Cagean: “All I’m interested in is liberating sound beyond all tradition.” Another piece from this period, *Canon* for 52 strings and 2 tapes, uses sound masses dramatically juxtaposed with traditional means, though standard techniques are often disguised or distorted. The *Canon* evokes choral tradition, and the composer has the players sing, with the instruction *bocca chiusa*.