'The Complete Symphonies', photo: DUX‘The Complete Symphonies’ (2015)
This is a collection of seven symphonies by the ‘gardener from Lusławice’; only the sixth is absent – Chinese Poems was only completed in 2017. The Polish Sinfonia Iuventus performs, with Krzysztof Penderecki himself conducting.
The First Symphony, commissioned by a British firm producing high-pressure engines, closes Penderecki’s avant-garde period – Penderecki shows how to domesticate sonorism. He calls this work ‘a wish for a new cosmogony’ – therefore he gives each of the symphony’s four symmetrical sections a Greek title: Arche I, Dynamis I, Dynamis II, Arche II. An incredible array of colours shines through this work. Penderecki utilises an amazing arsenal of instruments: triangles, a gong, cymbals, tam-tams, tom-toms, bongos, congas, a wooden drum, a bass drum, a woodblock, claves, a ratchet, a guiro, a whip, a vibraslap, crotales, an iron bar, bells, a glockenspiel, Almglocken, a harmonium, a harp, and a celesta, in addition to the more traditional brass, piano and strings.
In his later symphonies, Penderecki alludes to the traditions of the great symphonic composers of the 19th and 20th centuries: Tschaikovsky, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Sibelius, and Shostakovich. His Second Symphony, also called his ‘Christmas’ symphony, got its title from a barely audible four-note motif that also appears in the Christmas carol Silent Night. Penderecki never liked that title and preferred not to use it. A minor third motif, known as the Polish motif, also appears. The whole is dark, gloomy – many have seen in it a reference to the situation in Poland in the 1980s. The Third Symphony is filled with allusions to the work of Penderecki’s teachers, but also to his own works.
The Fourth Symphony – Adagio – was composed on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen; the Fifth Symphony – or the ‘Korean’ one – marked the 50th anniversary of the liberation of South Korea from Japanese occupation. The Seventh Symphony, The Seven Gates of Jerusalem – like the Eighth Symphony (Lieder der Vergänglichkeit) – reflects the oratory-cantata tradition which stretches from Telemann and Bach, through Verdi, Bruckner, and Orff, up to modern times.
'A Manuscript Found in Saragossa', photo: OBUH‘A Manuscript Found in Saragossa’ (2005)
The Holy Grail of Polish music lovers, A Manuscript Found in Saragossa is the soundtrack to Wojciech Jerzy Has’s film of the same title, which was recorded in the Polish Radio Experimental Studio and re-released by the underground publishing house OBUH in Rogalów. They are the ones who promoted the bands Za Siódmą Gorą (Beyond the Seventh Mountain), Księżyc (Moon), Atman and the first recordings of Karpaty Magiczne (Magic Carpathians); they also brought music which was experimental, industrial and inspired by world music to Poland. How does Penderecki find himself in this universe? The director of the studio Wojcek Czern explained in an interview in Muzykoteka Szkolna (School Music Library):