Film music: from Żuławski and Wajda to Mr Kleks
In 1967, he composed the soundtrack for the debut productions of Andrzej Żuławski, his friend from primary school: Pieśni Trimufującej Miłości and Pavoncello. In their first joint production, we can already hear sounds typical of Korzyński’s film music – strong rock riffs, funky bass lines, polyrhythmic drums. In other fragments, he referred to dance rhythms, tango and waltz. These sounds were completely innovative in Polish film music and also aroused the interest of foreign audiences. Korzyński’s music corresponded in an interesting way with the compositions of Italian composers creating at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Ennio Morricone, Fabio Frizzi, Claudio Simonetti and others. In The Third Part of the Night, Żuławski asked him to create something that would resemble the music of Akira Kurosawa’s films, the sounds of Tibetan horns. Korzyński said in an interview published in Estrada i Studio:
In this film he wanted the music to be extremely expressive, even religious, and to achieve such an effect the whole thing had to be in low registers and based on long sounds. So we took two more guests and sang one sound in four. Later we played it twice as slow and it sounded like the murmur of Tibetan monks – it turned out to be music he liked very much. I think Andrzej worked with me for so long because I was inventing such different patents like these for him and he wanted to surprise at all costs. He was absolutely crazy about that.
The composer also collaborated with Żuławski on ten other films, including Devil, On the Silver Globe, Possession and Cosmos. He also wrote the soundtrack for Bird Talk, a film directed in 2019 by Xawery Żuławski based on a script by Żuławski’s deceased father.
Another filmmaker who owed the character of his films to Andrzej Korzyński’s music to a certain extent was Andrzej Wajda – they collaborated on six films. In a dedication on a French vinyl record with music for Man of Iron, Wajda wrote: ‘To Andrzej Korzyński, whose music brings my films success’.
He has also composed music for Academy of Mr Kleks and works by other Polish filmmakers, including Edward Żebrowski (Salvation), Janusz Morgenstern (S.O.S.), Jerzy Gruza (The Ring and the Rose) and Sylwester Chęciński (Take it Easy, Big Shar). Andrzej Korzyński was also active abroad. In 1969, he left for France on a contract with 20th Century Fox . A year later he composed the music for the film Germania 7 Donne a Testa directed by Paolo Cavallina and Stanis Nievo for Warner Bros. In 1973, he signed a contract for the soundtracks for 15 films with DEVA Studio, a state film studio in East Germany, in Potsdam-Babelsberg. Since 1986, he has worked with West German labels, including BAWARIA Studio and FILM POOL. He has also made music for TV series for SAT1.
For many years the work of Andrzej Korzyński was known only to film connoisseurs and music lovers who were passionate about film soundtracks. In 2012, his compositions were rediscovered by the renowned British label Finders Keepers, which dedicated four vinyl records to his work. Since 2015 he has been cooperating with the Polish record company GAD Records.
Originally written in Polish by Filip Lech, translated into English by P. Grabowski, December 2019