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Posted: |
Dec 8, 2010 - 2:23 AM
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By: |
ToneRow
(Member)
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While my personal favorite composers do not count Krzysztof Penderecki amongst their numbers, Penderecki nonetheless is an outstanding composer and has been associated, along with Gyorgy Ligeti, with the vanguard of 20th century modernism and dissonance - a reputation, no doubt, which was enhanced by the inclusion of a few of his pieces in "The Exorcist" soundtrack.
Ironically, Penderecki's reputation seems to have rested upon the impact of his young works written during the early 1960s. I have found that Penderecki's music from the 1970s to present is more tonal/modal (akin to Gorecki) and that makes it, to me, less idiosyncratic and more generalized.
As for recommendations, I will put forth Penderecki's '68/'69 opera "The Devils Of Loudon", based upon Aldous Huxley's book (as was Ken Russell's film "The Devils"), "Threnody For The Victims Of Hiroshima" - perhaps Penederecki's most famous work, as well as "Anaklasis", the 1960 String Quartet, "Polymorphia", plus his "Canon". While I don't think I ever heard his "Stabat Mater" from 1962, it was composed prior to his "St. Luke Passion", and I expect should be of similar interest. Also, check out his unusual mixture of electronic and period music he provided as a soundtrack for the 3-hour Polish film "The Saragossa Manuscript" 
[while I am not one to disagree with the experts from the Gramophone Guide, please be aware that Penderecki's "Polish Requiem" was initially completed in 1984 (and subsequently revised over time), so do not expect the same sound world as that from "St. Luke Passion"]
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Posted: |
Dec 8, 2010 - 11:03 AM
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By: |
John Smith
(Member)
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Much to my wife’s utter dismay, Krzysztof Penderecki is easily my favourite composer. (The fact that I lived down the road from him and also provided his daughter with private English tutoring may have slightly coloured my feelings for the composer.)
A little known fact about Penderecki is that is that when he started his career as a classical composer, he simultaneously began writing film music. His most famous film score was for the 1964 Napoleonic epic The Saragossa Manuscript, which you can watch here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQXqzj-Bg4E
If you are at all familiar with Penderecki’s atonal compositional techniques, prepare yourself for quite a shock.
Earlier this year, Penderecki talked about his film scoring experiences with Kevin Filipski. Here’s a short excerpt from that interview:
KF: Many people—including myself—were introduced to your music through movies like The Exorcist and The Shining. Why did you stop composing film scores, and how do you respond to your music being used in many movies, even today?
KP: I was writing music for movies in the very beginning of my career in the ‘50s and the ‘60s (such as The Saragossa Manuscript and Je t’aime, Je t’aime). I decided it was very dangerous for a so-called serious composer, because it’s very easy to make a lot of money doing it, but returning to composing serious music will be more difficult afterwards. But I have allowed good directors like Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch to use my music. Most important to me is Andrzej Wajda’s recent film Katyn, which used a lot of my music. It’s true that many people only know my name from the music that’s been heard in the movies. When Kubrick called me about The Shining, it was very strange: he first asked me to write music for his film, but I instead gave him suggestions about some of my pieces. I told him about The Awakening of Jacob, which he did use in The Shining. It was written as a sacred work, so it’s scary how well it works in the movie, during very eerie moments. My music is rather abstract and maybe even strange-sounding for some people, so maybe that’s why it’s been used in so many horror movies and thrillers.
The full interview can be found here:
http://www.timessquare.com/Music_%26_Clubs/Music_Interviews/Krzysztof_Penderecki_Interview/
Penderecki’s classical compositions have been utilized on the soundtracks of several well-known films, the most famous of which was arguably The Exorcist. The soundtrack album contains three pieces by Penderecki: “Polymorphia”, “String Quartet No.1” and “Kanon for Orchestra and Tape”. It’s an excellent introduction to his more avant garde compositions, especially “Polymorphia”. As an anecdotal aside, I was told by Penderecki’s daughter that her father’s music was used by William Friedkin without prior consultation with, or the express permission of, the composer. Apparently, Pappy went ballistic when he discovered his music was on the Exorcist soundtrack, and remedial negotiations were swiftly held to appease the composer (and his publisher).
As Penderecki mentions above, Kubrick’s The Shining was another Warner Bros. horror film that was tracked with his compositions. No doubt aware of the problems surrounding The Exorcist, Kubrick phoned Penderecki early in the production and they exchanged scoring ideas. In a further 2010 interview conducted by Andy Battaglia, the composer expanded on his earlier remarks about his contribution to The Shining and other subsequent movies that have employed his music: Here’s the most interesting part:
AB: Your music has been used in some big movies, starting with Stanley Kubrick and up through the recent Martin Scorsese movie Shutter Island. How did that start?
KP: I gave permission to use my music to Kubrick. He actually asked me to write music for his movie The Shining. I was working on a big piece so I couldn't, but I gave him some ideas for what he should listen to, which he did and took some fragments.
AB: What did he ask for exactly?
KP: I didn't meet him. He called me, and we had a ten or fifteen minute conversation. He was describing to me, especially when Jack Nicholson tries to kill in the labyrinth, he said he wanted something that was not direct, not illustrative, but had some deeper feeling, not just crazy like the scene is. I gave him the idea of a new piece I wrote that was an interpretation of the Bible, the awakening of Jacob. I thought it had a special atmosphere. I was using ocarinas, and there was something in it that sounded new. David Lynch also used my music for movies.
AB: Did you talk to Lynch?
KP: Yes, but not directly. I just gave him some ideas about some of my pieces. Another movie that used my music was a film by the Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, Katyn. I wanted my music to be in that movie because my uncle was murdered there [in Katyn, the site of a massacre in which more than 20,000 Polish nationals were murdered by the Soviet Union in 1940; it's also the site of the plane crash that killed Poland's president and many ranking officials in April 2010]. I was supposed to go with the president to that spot this year, because I belong to something called the Katyn Families, but I didn't have time because I was in China and couldn't change the date. But I went there with the president two years ago, to the same place in the same plane.
The full interview can be found here:
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1234
The Japanese Reflex release of The Shining contains four pieces by Penderecki: “Utrenja”, “The Awakening of Jacob”, “De Natura Sonoris” and “Polymorphia”. The Warner Bros. CD release doesn’t include “Polymorphia”, which is a pity because it’s one of Penderecki’s avant-garde masterpieces.
Regarding Penderecki’s “Polish Requiem”, it’s true, as ToneRow points out, that the original version was premiered in 1984. However, the Sanctus which appears in the definitive version of the Requiem (available on a superb 1995 Chandos recording) was not written until 1993.
As for Penderecki’s "Threnody For The Victims Of Hiroshima", it may be his most (in)famous early work, but I think he is more likely to be remembered for “The St. Luke Passion,” which is undoubtedly one of the most powerful atonal compositions ever written.
Incidentally, it’s KRZYSZTOF not Krysztof (there’s a “z” missing)
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What this has to do with film scores I do not know....
But Penderecki's UTRENJA: The Entombment of Christ
Eugene Ormandy & The Philadelphia Orchestra
Will shatter the windows, curl up the floorboards and blast you across and into another room. It is a sonic orchestral, choral & soloists explosion of sound.
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Posted: |
Dec 9, 2010 - 3:53 AM
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By: |
John Smith
(Member)
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But Penderecki's UTRENJA: The Entombment of Christ
Eugene Ormandy & The Philadelphia Orchestra
Will shatter the windows, curl up the floorboards and blast you across and into another room.
I don't know about shattering windows, but it certainly shattered the composure of one of my students some years ago.
I’d just started listening to the Ormandy recording of Utrenja at home when a group of students arrived for a class. Instead of switching the CD player off, I turned the sound down to a slight background hum. (I should point out that I almost always played classical music during my lessons, hoping vainly to induce the so-called “Mozart effect”.)
About ten minutes into the class (a mock reading exam, to be precise), one of the female students started crying. I asked her what the matter was and she told me that she was overcome with a feeling of queasiness and extreme anxiety brought on by the music. She was, however, too polite to ask me to turn the music off.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, this reaction is exactly why film directors like Kubrick and Friedkin turned to Penderecki for their music. (I wonder how many viewers of The Exorcist realised that their subsequent nightmares were induced as much by the soundtrack as by the visuals of the film?)
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I would also recommend the more tonal 2nd Symphony which is subtitled "Christmas Symphony" so it's kind of relevant to this time of year too.. ;-)
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But Penderecki's UTRENJA: The Entombment of Christ
Eugene Ormandy & The Philadelphia Orchestra
Will shatter the windows, curl up the floorboards and blast you across and into another room.
I don't know about shattering windows, but it certainly shattered the composure of one of my students some years ago.
I’d just started listening to the Ormandy recording of Utrenja at home when a group of students arrived for a class. Instead of switching the CD player off, I turned the sound down to a slight background hum. (I should point out that I almost always played classical music during my lessons, hoping vainly to induce the so-called “Mozart effect”.)
About ten minutes into the class (a mock reading exam, to be precise), one of the female students started crying. I asked her what the matter was and she told me that she was overcome with a feeling of queasiness and extreme anxiety brought on by the music. She was, however, too polite to ask me to turn the music off.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, this reaction is exactly why film directors like Kubrick and Friedkin turned to Penderecki for their music. (I wonder how many viewers of The Exorcist realised that their subsequent nightmares were induced as much by the soundtrack as by the visuals of the film?)
Strange that it would make anyone weep... the bass soloist drones so deep you'd expect him to burrow into the earth... then the orchestra's percussion goes into a riot of cacophony... and that crying out choir... you need to turn up the volume. Even the old album cover stated it was a sonic event.
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