Synopsis
In 1961, a new and difficult work for strings announced the arrival of a composer with a new and difficult name for non-Polish speakers to pronounce: Krzysztof Penderecki.
Having lived as a young man under Nazi occupation and then under Poland’s repressive and ultra-conservative Communist regime, it’s not surprising, perhaps, that Penderecki developed an ultra-modern, rebelliously experimental musical style. The success of his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima made Penderecki famous worldwide. Subsequent choral works, operas, and more experimental orchestral works followed for the next dozen years or so.
By 1973, however, he accepted a commission for a symphony and on today’s date that year, Penderecki conducted the first performance of his Symphony No. 1 with the London Symphony at Peterborough Cathedral in central England. While Symphony No. 1 remained in his aggressively experimental style, Penderecki would go on to write several more, each in much more conservative musical language, influenced by more traditional composers like Bruckner and Shostakovich.
“[My composing in this style] maybe goes a little back in time, but it goes back in order to go forward. Sometimes it's good to look back and to learn from the past,” explained Penderecki.
Music Played in Today’s Program
Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933): Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (National Polish Radio Symphony; Antoni Wit, cond.) Naxos 8.554491
Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933): Symphony No. 1 (National Polish Radio Symphony; Antoni Wit, cond.) Naxos 8.554567
On This Day
Births
1906 - Norwegian composer Klaus Egge, in Gransherad, Telemark
1913 - American composer and pianist Peggy Stuart-Coolidge in Swampscott, Massachusetts
1952 - English composer Dominic Muldowney, in Southhampton
1965 - Scottish composer and percussionist Evelyn Glennie, in Aberdeen
Deaths
1730 - French composer and flutist Jean-Baptiste Loeillet, 49, in London
Premieres
1924 - Webern: Six Bagatelles, for string quartet, in Donauschingen (Germany), by the Amar Quartet
1973 - Penderecki: Symphony No. 1 in Peterborough Cathedral by the London Symphony, conducted by the composer
1976 - Richard Wernick: Visions of Terror and Wonder for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. This work won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1977.
1996 - John Williams Summon the Heroes, a six-minute theme for the 1996 Summer Olympics, commissioned by the Atlanta Olympic Organizing Committee
Others
1942 - Arturo Toscanini conducts the American premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad) on a NBC Symphony broadcast. The world premiere performance by the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra had occurred on March 1, 1942, in Kuybishe, the wartime seat of the Soviet government.
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About Composers Datebook®
Host John Birge presents a daily snapshot of composers past and present, with timely information, intriguing musical events and appropriate, accessible music related to each.
He has been hosting, producing and performing classical music for more than 25 years. Since 1997, he has been hosting on Minnesota Public Radio's Classical Music Service. He played French horn for the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestra and performed with them on their centennial tour of Europe in 1995. He was trained at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music and Interlochen Arts Academy.
