Spirituality in 20th-Century Music: From Penderecki to Pärt

penderycki_wyszynski.jpg, default, Krzysztof Penderecki & Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, 1975, photo: PAP / Tadeusz Zagoździński

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From Krzysztof Penderecki to Arvo Pärt, the great composers of Central Europe have used music to convey the ineffable and the divine. Here we explore these artists whose work speaks to the weight of history and expresses a spirituality beyond words.

The composers of the second half of the 20th century carried the heavy burden of history. They bore not only the weight of music tradition, with its great masters and avant-garde, but also the burden of history – the Holocaust, two world wars, gulags, and totalitarianisms. The German philosopher Theodor Adorno’s question of whether it was still possible to create poetry after the experience of Auschwitz, was also asked by creators and music commentators of the era.

Pascal Quignard, a French philosophical writer, went the furthest in his reflections, saying openly: ‘I hate music’ (La Haine de la musique, 1996).

Suddenly infinitely amplified by the invention of electricity and the multiplication of its technology, it has become incessant, aggressing night and day, in the commercial streets of city centres, in shopping centres, in arcades, in department stores, in bookstores, in lobbies of foreign banks where one goes to withdraw money, even in swimming pools, even at the beach, in private apartments, in restaurants, in taxis, in the metro, in airports. Even in airplanes during takeoff and landing. Even in death camps.

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Music was one of the only forms of art instrumentalized by the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Orchestras were organised in the German concentration camps, and the symphonic output of the then victors was constantly broadcast in occupied countries. Many Jewish musicians worked in European orchestras, who then had to play at the behest of the Nazis. Performing music should be the culmination of artistic satisfaction, not an act of humiliation. ‘Wherever there is a conductor and performers, there is also music’, Quingard wrote.

How did Central European composers deal with this burden? How did spirituality resound in the suffering-filled 20th century? Spirituality, what language cannot capture, was conveyed in symbols and metaphors. Here we explore the works of composers for whom the religious aspect of music was exceptionally important.

Roots in the 10th century

When we think of artistic music drawing from religion, we must not forget its roots, namely the liturgy. For believers, liturgical music is one of the ways of experiencing the sacred, of coming to faith. It can also be a political act, as for example in 966, during the baptism of Mieszko I.

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JERYCHO: Dziedzictwo Chrztu Polski 966-2016

Jakub Kubieniec of Jagiellonian University reconstructed the likely repertoire of the baptism, which was revived for 20th century audiences in 2016 by Marcel Pérès and the Jerycho ensemble, under the baton of Bartosz Izbicki. Mieszko’s baptism most likely happened on 14 April 966, on Holy Saturday. We are not sure where; it may have happened in Poznań, Ostrów Lednicki, or even Regensburg (so claimed Jerzy Dowiat, a Polish medievalist and author of works on the Baptism of Poland). The singing was probably done by Bohemian clergymen from Dobrawa's retinue, and possibly also by Bavarians. Before the Baptism, Mieszko and his retinue had to learn the principles of their new faith.

If we assume that the baptism took place in April of 966, then the prince must have been intensively preparing for it from the end of February, when Lent began, during which candidates for baptism were traditionally given final instructions and subjected to the rituals of the so-called scrutinies. On the day of these scrutinies, the Mass readings and chants were chosen to introduce the catechumens to the symbolism and meaning of baptism
From ‘Chrzest Polski. Muzyczne korzenie i dziedzictwo’ (‘The Baptism of Poland: Musical Roots and Heritage’),
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The ceremony began around seven o'clock after sunrise (in the Bavarian tradition slightly later, at nine o'clock in the evening) with the consecration of a new fire. The procession walked to the place of the ceremony, carrying the processional cross (vexillum), holy water, and a thurible. When they reached the steps, the cantors began to sing Inventor rutili, a hymn written by Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, a poet of late antiquity. ‘The first part of the hymn, repeated as a refrain after successive stanzas, was sung first by the cantors, then by the whole choir’, writes Kubieniec, ‘As often as the refrain was repeated (always in alternating order: cantors – choir), that is how often the entire procession stopped’. Then the rest of the liturgy would continue with readings and chants. The profession of faith was followed by baptism. The newly baptised were dressed in white robes ‘to indicate the grace of rebirth, purity of life, and the splendour of angelic beauty’. Following the baptism, Mieszko was probably confirmed. Later, to the accompaniment of the Litany of All Saints, he received the sacrament of communion for the first time. Then the cantors sang Christe, audi nos (Christ, hear us), candles were lit on the altar, Accendite (Inflame) was chanted, and all the bells were rung.

The Paschal Alleluia, sung at Easter, likely also has roots in these very, very ancient times. It is a simple, moving melody, unique in its modest ornamentation, which does not resemble alleluia verses endowed with elaborate melismas.

Penderecki’s Passion

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'St Luke Passion' by Krzysztof Penderecki, conductor: Vladimir Jurowski, March 4, 2017, at the Royal Festival Hall, London, photo: Simon Jay Price

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Krzysztof Penderecki had been thinking about writing the Saint Luke Passion since 1962, when he composed Stabat mater. He studied biblical texts and the history of the Passion form. He was particularly inspired by Bach's Saint John Passion and Saint Matthew Passion. Penderecki had a lot of ideas for his Saint Luke Passion, most of them contradictory; he would make notes and, dissatisfied with himself, tear them to shreds. In 1962, after a performance of Fluorescences at the Donaueschingen Festival, Otto Tomek, director of the contemporary music department of the Cologne radio station, heard about Penderecki's idea. After difficult negotiations, Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln commissioned the Polish composer to write the work for a boys' choir, three mixed choirs, three solo voices (soprano, baritone, and bass), a narrator, and a large symphony orchestra. The premiere took place in St-Paulus-Dom Cathedral in Münster, on the 700th anniversary of the Romanesque church (and at the same time 1000 years after the Baptism of Poland). Penderecki said in an interview:

‘The Passion’ is the suffering and death of Christ, but it is also the suffering and death at Auschwitz, the tragic experience of mankind, in the middle of the twentieth century.
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Penderecki used texts from the Gospel of Saint Luke and fragments of the Gospel of Saint John and supplemented them with Lenten hymns and psalms. The work is also a tribute to the greatest author of musical Passions, Johann Sebastian Bach. This can be deduced from the score, which incorporates the ‘BACH motif’ (the notes B flat, A, C, B natural, which in German notation spell the name BACH). The piece was written to be performed in churches, where the slight chord changes create strands of overlapping sound that grow and echo through the walls of the sacred space.

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PASJA WG ŚW. ŁUKASZA | Krzysztof Penderecki | Grzegorz Jarzyna

The premiere of Penderecki’s Saint Luke Passion was attended by the Papal Nuncio, the Bishop of Münster, 50 German journalists, and over a dozen foreign critics, including Jerzy Waldorff. After the premiere, he wrote: ‘Today Penderecki is surrounded in the West by the same kind of cult as Stravinsky was in Paris in the 1930s’.

The course of the piece is exceptionally dramatic and theatrical; the figures of the Evangelists, the choirs arranged in space, the lector, and instrumental fragments are in constant dialogue with one another. This is why many performances of the Saint Luke Passion have resorted to means of expression going beyond music. Back in the 1960s, the Passion was performed in Düsseldorf accompanied by ballet and lighting effects. In 1969, in Adelaide, Australia, Penderecki's music was accompanied by a show of paintings depicting the Passion, from Leonardo da Vinci to Picasso. In Argentina, in the 1970s, the Passion was performed at night, under the cathedral in La Plata, and the concert was accompanied by a multicolour light show.

It is also worth mentioning the performance directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna in 2012, for which Penderecki introduced several minor changes to the piece. The stage action was virtually non-existent, and all gestures were reduced to a minimum. Rectangles were painted on the lips of singers and choristers. The main characters did not wear the traditional concert hall suits and dresses, but rather tunic-like pieces of material. The hall was surrounded by screens on which the audience watched, among others, the composer drawing a symbolic diagram showing the emotions written in the score and the image of his brainwaves recorded by an encephalograph. The composer's emotions are made visible, but the rest of the action is reduced to a rather odd choreography, or rather, stillness. This is reminiscent of accounts from concentration camps, such as that from Primo Levi (as quoted in Quignard): ‘Then he saw the battalions returning to the camp with a strange gait: advancing in rows of five, almost rigid, their necks strained, their arms against their bodies, like men made out of wood, the music lifting their legs and tens of thousands of wooden clogs, contracting their bodies like those of automata’.

Panufnik’s Prayer

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Andrzej Panufnik and Leopold Stokowski, 1970, photo: Camilla Jessel / Boosey & Hawkes Collection

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Three years after Penderecki's Passion, Andrzej Panufnik, a composer living in exile in Great Britain, composed a vocal-instrumental prayer referring to a different vision of spirituality – oscillating between ecumenism and popular interpretations of Eastern philosophy. Universal Prayer, based on the verse by Alexander Pope, was written with the idea of a choir performing his universal prayer with people of all races, nations, and faiths. As Panufnik wrote:

Each of the four soloists, I dreamt, would also be a representative of a different race. As for the instruments, I decided to limit myself to just the organ and three harps.

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In the 1960s, when Panufnik wrote Universal Prayer, the ecumenical movement was in its infancy, and common prayers of various faiths were not at all part of everyday life. This made it difficult to stage a universal work. Leopold Stokowski, who from the beginning insisted that he be the first conductor in the world to direct Panufnik's new composition, spent a long time looking for a church that would agree to such a progressive performance. The first performance of Panufnik's ecumenical prayer took place at the Anglican Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City, where it was performed two days in a row to an audience of about 4,000. The piece was then performed at New York’s Saint Patrick's Catholic Cathedral, with Christians, Jews, and Buddhists singing in the choir.

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Panufnik "Universal Prayer" - Stokowski conducts World Premiere Recording

Another Panufnik piece dealing with spirituality is Winter Solstice, written in 1972, with lyrics by Camilla Panufnik. In it, they leaned towards dualism, which they saw not only in Eastern religions but also in Christianity. The title refers to the winter solstice, which used to be a pagan festival, but today is celebrated as the birth of Jesus. Camilla used the almost identical sound of the words ‘son’ and ‘sun’, and Andrzej divided the choir into pagans (male choir) and Christians (female choir). The choir is accompanied by two soloists: a soprano symbolising Mother-Earth, and a bass-baritone as Saint Augustine, whose texts were used by the Panufniks.

Górecki's spirituality

Thumbnail — Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, photo: Czesław Czapliński / FOTONOVA

In 1976, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki completed his Symphony No. 3, dubbed the ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’. It is one of the greatest phonographic hits of contemporary music; 16 years after its premiere performance, the work was released by Elektra Nonesuch Records and swept Western charts (legend has it that even truck drivers listened to it). It is also one of the most interesting 20th-century pieces depicting Polish spirituality.

Górecki draws here on the archetype of a mother mourning the death of her child, linking the Biblical Mary with contemporary women whose children died in war. In the first movement of the symphony, he uses the Renaissance lamentation, ‘O my son, beloved and chosen, Share your wounds with your mother’. In the second movement it is a child, in this case a daughter, who consoles her mother, quoting words written on the wall of a Gestapo torture chamber in Zakopane by the teenage Helena Błażusiakówna, ‘Oh Mamma do not cry, no. Immaculate Queen of Heaven, You support me always’. In the last part, the composer incorporated folk songs from the period of the Silesian Uprisings (1919-1921).

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Henryk Górecki - III Symfonia (Symfonia Pieśni Żałosnych / Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) - 2

The sound material is simplified, the tempo slowed down, the piece is full of repetitions. Despite the simplicity and "romanticism" noticed by critics, Symphony No. 3 is exceptionally universal and continues to inspire artists from all over the world. The piece was performed by Beth Gibbons from Portishead, and the saxophonist Colin Stetson reimaged the piece on his album Sorrow.

Another important religious work written by Górecki is the psalm Beatus Vir. The work for baritone, mixed choir, and orchestra was commissioned in 1977 by Kraków's Cardinal Karol Wojtyła to mark the 900th anniversary of the death of Saint Stanislaus. The work was completed in 1979, when Karol Wojtyła was already Pope and was first performed in Kraków's Franciscan Church during John Paul II's pilgrimage to Poland. There are many symbols hidden in the score: the four-measure ostinato repeated 11 times symbolises the day and month of Saint Stanisław's death (11 April) and in another fragment, the composer encrypted the date of Karol Wojtyła's election to the Papacy (16 October).

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https://soundcloud.com/culturepl/henryk-miko-aj-g-recki-beatus

Gubaidulina's religious acts

Poland was not the only place where the religious revival in contemporary music took place. One of the most significant composers of religious music is Sofia Gubaidulina, born in 1931 in the Soviet republic of Tatarstan. Her mother was Russian, her father a Volga Tatar. She wrote her first compositions in the 1960s, in which she referenced Baroque music, oriental musical traditions of the peoples living in the USSR, and European avant-garde. In an interview published in Ruch Muzyczny in 2007, the composer said:

I believe that music as art contains within it divine elements – they are present in the sound itself, in its nature.

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Gubaidulina was baptised in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1970. Her acquaintance with the pianist Maria Vieniaminovna Yudina had a great influence on her religiosity. Yudina was a graduate of the St Petersburg Conservatory, which she attended with Dmitry Shostakovich and Vladimir Sofronitsky, and was one of the most renowned Russian pianists of the 20th century, known for her performances of compositions by Boulez, Stockhausen, Schönberg, and Shostakovich.

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Oleg Kagan plays Gubaidulina Offertorium

In 1980, Gubaidulina composed the violin concerto Offertorium dedicated to Gidon Kremer (revised in 1982 and 1986). The title refers to the Offertory, the part of the Mass following the Nicene Creed. The work could not be performed in the atheistic USSR, so Kremer premiered it at the Vienna Konzerthaus. It contains quotations from Bach (Das Musikalisches Opfer), references to the Last Judgment and the moment of Christ's crucifixion, as well as references to Orthodox choral songs.

Gubaidulina also created her own musical interpretation of the Passion. The piece was written in 2000 on the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's death as part of the Passion 2000 series, in which conductor Helmut Rilling asked four composers rooted in different musical traditions of the world to write the Passion. Wolfgang Rihm used texts by Paul Celan; Osvaldo Golijov referred to Latin American musical traditions, making Christ black; Tan Dun composed Water Passion after St Matthew, in which the Bach tradition is combined with elements of Chinese music and the symbol of water, universal for all mankind.

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Sofia Gubaidulina - Johannes Passion : Fusswashung

Gubaidulina wrote two linked works: The St John Passion and the accompanying Apocalypse. In the Orthodox Church, there is no tradition of writing Christ's Passion; besides, in the Orthodox liturgy the use of instruments is forbidden. Therefore, the composer had to find her own way of referring to the rich tradition of musical representation of the Passion while at the same time referring to Orthodox symbolism and sensitivity.

God in silence & in algebra

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Arvo Pärt, photo: Grzegorz Dąbrowski / Agencja Gazeta

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Arvo Pärt was born on 11 September 1935 in Paide, Estonia, which was annexed by the USSR in 1940. He began his composing career with neoclassicism and later explored modern compositional techniques: dodecaphony, sonorism, serialism. His Obituary from 1963 was the first dodecaphonic work to be written in the Soviet Union. Pärt enjoyed success at festivals abroad, such as the Warsaw Autumn Festival; but in his home country, he was accused of formalism. In 1968, he composed Credo, in which he juxtaposed two worlds: combining religious quotations from Bach with serialism.

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Arvo Pärt: Credo for chorus, orchestra and solo piano

According to censors, his work had a dangerous effect on audiences, and his compositions were thus erased from Soviet concert life.

It was then that Pärt began searching for his own form of expression, absorbed in studies of early music: Gregorian chant and early polyphony. In the 1970s, he converted from the Lutheran Church to Orthodoxy (although in his later works he refers to the Roman liturgy). He was particularly inspired by Hesychasm, the Byzantine mystical movement developing on the holy Mount Athos.

In 1980, Arvo Pärt left Soviet Estonia for Austria, where he was free to develop his work. He joined the ECM record label, which released successive albums devoted to his work, thus securing him an important place in the international contemporary music circuit. In 1982, he composed his Saint John Passion. In contrast to the works of Penderecki and Gubaidulina, it is a very static and subdued piece, referring to medieval canons. Instead of a large symphony orchestra, we hear here six voices, a choir and five instruments (violin, cello, oboe, bassoon, and organ). This sparseness reflects the composer’s insistence that ‘One has to learn to listen to silence’.

^{Originally written in Polish, translated by Agnes Dudek, 22 Oct 2021}

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