Krzysztof Penderecki died at the end of March aged eighty-six. In his later years, as well as breaking away from his avant-garde compositional style for something neo-Romantic, he developed a conducting career for his own and other composers’ music.
With the LPO he conducts three of his works: Horn Concerto ‘Winterreise’ (2008) is dramatic, atmospheric and quirky, sustaining its eighteen minutes well, and enjoying the superb services of Radovan Vlatković; whereas Adagio for Strings (an adaptation of Symphony 3’s slow movement) is rarefied and desolate, before climaxing intensely, and can’t avoid comparison with Shostakovich; and, also for strings, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, a Penderecki classic from 1960, music that screams in pain and depicts horror through a stream of remarkable effects, often savage.
The big beast here is Violin Concerto No.1 (1976, premiered by Isaac Stern), forty minutes of continuous music that (seems to) present the soloist as a character in a theatrical context, dark and tragic (tolling timpani – Brahms 1, Strauss’s Don Quixote, Ruggles’s Sun-Treader) with brassy interventions that remind of Lutosławski, yet, structurally, one wonders where one is and why, although a sense of arrival is apparent during the final few minutes, and the work as a whole continues to fascinate once listening to it is over. Barnabás Kelemen is the outstanding soloist, and Michał Dworzynski gets a committed response from the LPO (27 November 2013).
All of these recordings are from concerts at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall (applause removed), the composer’s date from 14 October 2015, and are excellent in terms of clarity and impact. LPO – 0116.
It’s easy to imagine that Penderecki’s Threnody was initially inspired by the terrible spectre/tragedy of Hiroshima, but that wasn’t actually the case. I quote from a lengthy analysis of the work at http://www.anthonybannach.com/uploads/2/1/6/7/21674290/pendereckipaper.pdf
‘the piece was not originally conceived as Threnody to the
Victims of Hiroshima. Penderecki had an intent to name the piece 8’37’’ after [its] duration, similar to John Cages’ 4’33’’. He only ended changing the name after a recommendation from a friend, who advised him that it would make a more emotional impact for his entering in the UNESCO Prize of the International Composers Jury. That change had an obvious and intended impact.
Of course that doesn’t in anyway invalidate your description Col, just puts the record straight, historically.
Thanks Rob, interesting to read what you say about Threnody’s background. Col