At the celebration, the audience will hear performances of Panufnik's well-known and loved works, as well as the London première of a quartet written by his daughter Roxanna Panufnik in honour of her father. The festival will also feature the first showing of a documentary film, My Father, the Iron Curtain and Me, directed by Krzysztof Rączyński and narrated by Jem Panufnik, the composer’s son, as well as a photographic exhibition revealing scenes from Andrzej Panufnik’s life and career. The festival will end with a cabaret evening modelled on the Warsaw variety shows of World War II.
The life and work of Andrzej Panufnik are inextricably linked to the key social and political events of the 20th century. Born into a musical family in Warsaw at the beginning of World War I, he wrote his first compositions at the age of 9. With the outbreak of World War II he discontinued his studies abroad and returned to his home country where, along with Witold Lutosławski, he participated in the musical resistance movement. Years of German occupation left a lasting mark as he lost many of his loved ones, as well as his compositional achievements. After World War II Panufnik became the communist regime’s favourite for a while, but when he refused to create “positive” music, he quickly fell from the authority’s grace. In 1954, in protest against the political oppression of artists, he decided to escape to Great Britain, where he lived and worked for the next 40 years.
In Poland his name was erased from the history of music and his work was prohibited until the late 70s. In 1991 Panufnik returned to Poland to conduct a series of concerts which inaugurated the Warsaw Autumn Festival. In the same year he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to British music.
At the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Brodsky Quartet will perform Piano Trio (from 1934), reconstructed after the war, and string quartets (from 1976-1990). Besides Panufnik’s works, one can also hear the music of his daughter Roxanna, including the London première of a quartet written especially for the Brodsky Quartet.
The celebrations at Kings Place will culminate with a cabaret evening inspired by the Warsaw musical meetings of World War II. During the occupation, so as to earn some small change, Panufnik along with Witold Lutosławski played their own songs at such evenings, as well as classical and jazz pieces. They often improvised music and smuggled pieces by Jewish and American composers into their repertoire. The cabaret concert will give the audience an opportunity to discover this humorous and jazzy side of the composer’s work – his vaudeville compositions from those years, as well as jazz arrangements of songs by Roxanna, performed by singers Jacqui Dankworth and Charlie Wood. Apart from that, the works of composers contemporary to Panufnik, such as Lothar Brüne, A. T. Müller, Jan Markowski and Goerge Gershwin, will be performed by the Brodsky Quartet and pianist Clare Hammond.
The festival is held with the support of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute’s Polska Music programme, Arts Council England, RVW Trust, the Hinrichsen Foundation and the John S. Cohen Foundation. Tickets are available at the Kings Place offices and on their website.
Source: press materials, ed. km, transl. szm, November 2014