1958–1962: first compositions Upon graduating from the Academy of Music in Kraków in 1958, Penderecki took up a teaching post at the academy. His early works show the influence of
Anton Webern and
Pierre Boulez (Penderecki was also influenced by
Igor Stravinsky). Penderecki's international recognition began in 1959 at the
Warsaw Autumn 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
atomic bombing of Hiroshima), written in 1960 for 52
string instruments. In it, he makes use of extended instrumental techniques (for example, playing behind the bridge, bowing on the tailpiece). There are many novel textures in the work, which makes extensive use of
tone clusters. He originally titled the work ''8' 37"'', but decided to dedicate it to the victims of Hiroshima.
Fluorescences followed a year later; it increases the orchestral density with more wind and brass, and an enormous percussion section of 32 instruments for six players, including a Mexican güiro, typewriters, gongs and other unusual instruments. The piece was composed for the
Donaueschingen Festival of contemporary music of 1962, and its performance was regarded as provocative and controversial. Even the score appeared revolutionary; the form of
graphic notation that Penderecki had developed rejected the familiar look of notes on a staff, instead representing music as morphing sounds. Another noteworthy piece of this period is the
Canon for 52 strings and 2 tapes. This is in a similar style to other pieces in the late 1950s in its use of sound masses, dramatically juxtaposed with traditional means although the use of standard techniques or idioms is often disguised or distorted. Indeed, the Canon brings to mind the choral tradition and indeed the composer has the players sing, albeit with the performance indication of
bocca chiusa (with closed mouth) at various points; nevertheless, Penderecki uses the 52 'voices' of the string orchestra to play in massed glissandi and harmonics at times – this is then recorded by one of the tapes for playback later on in the piece. It was performed at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 1962 and caused a riot although curiously the rioters were young music students and not older concertgoers. At the same time, he started composing music for theater and film. The first theater performance with Penderecki's music was
Złoty kluczyk (
Golden Little Key) by Yekaterina Borysowa directed by Władysław Jarema (premiered on 12 May 1957 in Krakow at the "Groteska" Puppet Theater). In 1959, at the
Cartoon Film Studio in Bielsko-Biała, he composed the music for the first animated film,
Bulandra i diabeł (
Coal Miner Bulandra and Devil), directed by Jerzy Zitzman and
Lechosław Marszałek. In 1959, he wrote the score for
Jan Łomnicki's first short fiction film,
Nie ma końca wielkiej wojny (
There is no End to the Great War, WFDiF Warszawa). In the following years he created over twenty original musical settings for dramatic and over 40 puppet performances, and composed original music for at least eleven documentary and feature films as well as for twenty-five animated films for adults and children.
The St. Luke Passion The large-scale
St. Luke Passion (1963–66) brought Penderecki further popular acclaim, not least because it was devoutly religious, yet written in an avant-garde musical language, and composed within Communist Eastern Europe. Various different musical styles can be seen in the piece. The experimental textures, such as were employed in the
Threnody, are balanced by the work's
Baroque form 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 toward the end of the piece concludes on a simple
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 sacred music. In the early 1970s he wrote a
Dies irae, a
Magnificat, and
Canticum Canticorum Salomonis (
Song of Songs) for chorus and orchestra. During the jubilee of the
People's Republic of Poland he received the Commander's Cross (1974) and the Knight's Cross of
Order of Polonia Restituta (1964). Towards the end of the decade, Penderecki received a commission to write for the 25th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. The result was
Kosmogonia, a piece of twenty minutes for three soloists (soprano, tenor, bass), mixed choir and orchestra. The
Los Angeles Philharmonic premiered the piece on 24 October 1970 with
Zubin Mehta as conductor and
Robert Nagy as tenor. The piece uses texts from ancient writers
Sophocles and
Ovid in addition to contemporary statements from
Soviet and American astronauts to musically explore the idea of the
cosmos.
1970s–2020: later years in 2011 In the mid-1970s, while he was a professor at the
Yale School of Music, 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. This direction continued with the
Symphony No. 2 (1980), which is harmonically and melodically quite straightforward; the symphony is sometimes referred to as the "Christmas Symphony" due to the opening phrase of the
Christmas carol Silent Night appearing three times during the work. Penderecki explained this 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'. , 2015 In 1975 the
Lyric Opera of Chicago asked him to write a work to commemorate the
US Bicentennial in 1976; this became the opera
Paradise Lost. Owing to delays to the project, however, it did not see its premiere until 1978. The music continued to illustrate Penderecki's move away from avant-garde techniques. It is tonal music, and the composer explained: "This is not music by the angry young man I used to be". In 1980, Penderecki was commissioned by
Solidarity to compose a piece to accompany the unveiling of a statue at the
Gdańsk shipyards to commemorate those killed in anti-government riots there in 1970. Penderecki responded with
Lacrimosa, which he later expanded into one of the best-known works of his later period, the
Polish Requiem (1980–84, 1993, 2005). Later, he tended towards more traditionally conceived tonal constructs, as heard in works such as the Cello Concerto No. 2 and the
Credo, which 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 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. Invited by
Walter Fink, he was the eleventh composer featured in the annual
Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2001. He conducted the Credo on the occasion of the 70th birthday of
Helmuth Rilling, 29 May 2003. Penderecki received an honorary doctorate from the
Seoul National University, Korea, in 2005 and the
University of Münster, Germany, in 2006. His notable students include
Chester Biscardi and Walter Mays. In celebration of his 75th birthday, he conducted three of his works at the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2008, among them Ciaccona from the
Polish Requiem. In 2010, he worked on an opera based on
Phèdre by
Racine for 2014, which was never realized, and expressed his wish to write a 9th symphony. In 2014, he was engaged in the creation of a choral work to coincide with the
Armenian genocide centennial. In 2018, he conducted Credo in
Kyiv at the 29th
Kyiv Music Fest, marking the centenary of Polish independence. ==Personal life==