 | Polish Music Newsletter |
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April 2004, Vol. 10, No. 4. ISSN 1098-9188. Published monthly. Los Angeles: Polish Music Center, University of Southern California
Anniversaries |
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Born 1933 in Debica, a village east of Cracow, his father a lawyer and enthusiastic violin player, young Krzysztof was given violin and piano lessons from an early age. Admitted to the Cracow Conservatory at 18, he simultaneously studied philosophy, art history, and literature at Jagiellonian University. From 1954 he studied composition at Cracow's State Academy of Music, and in 1959, then a still-unknown 28-year-old assistant professor there, he submitted under different pseudonyms three compositions to the Composers' Union's second annual Warsaw Competition of Young Polish Composers, and won the first, second and third prizes. Other works that followed in rapid succession immediately put Penderecki at the forefront of the avant-garde with a passionate radical humanism expressed through his highly experimental and expressionistic use of sound that threw the academic rules out the window, as in Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, 1960, still perhaps his most widely known and frequently performed piece.
A second phase followed—one of "consolidation" (as explained, for example, by Wolfram Schwinger)—in which Penderecki integrated the experimental and the traditional, as in his Passion According to St. Luke, 1966, considered by many to be his masterpiece, drawing upon both Gregorian chant and twelve-tone technique.
In the mid-seventies Penderecki suddenly gave up his avant-garde interests in favor of the more traditional tonal language of the late 19th and early 20th century, moving toward a contemporary neo-Romanticism, as in his first Violin Concerto (1976-77), until yet a fourth phase was introduced in 1982 with his second Viola Concerto,
in which he re-introduced to his romantic idiom the once-shocking musical effects of his early experimental period, thereafter proceeding to experiment even further. It was in this newly fertile period, two decades after the first Violin Concerto, that he composed between 1992 and 1995 the Metamorphosen, his Violin Concerto No.2, commissioned by the Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk, Leipzig, and dedicated to the First Violinist at its 1995 premiere in Leipzig, Anne-Sophie Mutter. On that occasion the piece, with Penderecki's characteristic symphonic variations upon a single theme, ran 37 minutes. More recent compositions include a Piano Concerto commissioned by and performed at Carnegie Hall in 2002.
Mr. Penderecki also established a reputation as a musical dramatist with four highly successful operas between 1969 and 1991—The Devils of Loudon (based on the book by Aldous Huxley), Paradise Lost (from John Milton), The Black Mask (from a play by Gerhardt Hauptmann), and Ubu Roi (from the play by Alfred Jarry). Like other leading composers of our century, Penderecki has also built an international reputation as a conductor, appearing with the leading symphony orchestras of Europe and America, including the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others. He also holds permanent posts as principal guest conductor of the NDR Orchestra in Hamburg and music director of the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico.
While director of his alma mater, the Cracow Academy of Music, from 1972 to 1979, Penderecki had also managed to teach at Yale University from 1973 to 1978, and has since held teaching posts throughout Europe and the U.S. He has received most of the world's most distinguished awards for composition, as well as a Grammy Award and two Emmies. He has received honorary doctorates, memberships, and professorships from numerous universities and national academies of music, from Stockholm to Buenos Aires, from Beijing to Pittsburgh .
This article was reprinted from the website of the Polish Cultural Institute, 
Preliminaries: 1-2 April, Kosciuszko Foundation House
Krzysztof Penderecki, one of the most respected and often-performed composers of our
time, recently celebrated his 70th birthday. There has not been a symposium in the
United States which has been devoted to a study of his works, though there have been
many such symposia in Europe, especially during the last two decades. In order to
fill in this gap in American studies of current music, a conference, American
Perspectives on Penderecki, will be offered at the Houston Baptist University in Southwest Houston, TX on 22-23 October 2004.
Coordinators of the conference are: Dr. Ray Robinson, Distinguished Professor, Palm Beach Atlantic University; Dr. Ann Gebuhr, Professor of Theory and Composition, Houston Baptist University; Dr. Robert Hatten, Professor of Theory, Indiana University; Dr. Cindy Bylander, Musicologist, San Antonio, Texas.
Papers on any aspect of Penderecki's music are invited for consideration for
presentation at the conference. The papers should be no more than 30 minutes in
length including audio or video examples (10-12 pages of text without examples, 12
pt. font, double spaced). Full capabilities for multimedia presentations are
available (Powerpoint, video, stereo audio, slides, overhead projector, piano).
Please submit a 300-500 word abstract in Microsoft Word format by email to Dr. Ray
Robinson at the following address:
Described by one colleague as a "musical volcano," Ms Poniatowska has no intention of becoming dormant during her retirement. If she follows in the footsteps of her spry and alert 90-year-old mother, who was also present at the celebration (pictured at right), she will indeed have many more years ahead of her. In her speech to the invited guests, Poniatowska jokingly referred to Poland's joining the European Union, and stated that as of May 1 she will no longer be 70 years old, but merely "48 with 22% VAT." Pani Irena, Ad multos annos! Sto lat!
[JH]
For three performances this month, the Penderecki String Quartet will perform a Spring Festival of Bartók and Beethoven for LACMA's Rosalinde Gilbert Concert. With more than a decade's experience performing throughout Europe, Asia, and North and South America, this Quartet has fashioned a reputation for virtuosity and interpretive subtlety among critics and
audiences alike, and is one of the most celebrated quartets in today's music world. Returning to LACMA for the seventh consecutive season, the Penderecki Quartet privileges the Los Angeles County Museum of Art community with a music festival of Bartók and Beethoven. In three concerts, they will perform the complete cycle of string quartets by Béla Bartók along with one of the late Beethoven quartets on each program.
Monday, April 12: Bartók's Quartets nos. 1 and 2, and Beethoven's op. 135
The Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival, whose Artistic Director and moving spirit is Mrs. Elżbieta Penderecka, has taken place in Cracow since 1997, a year commemorating the 170th death anniversary of the creator of Fidelio and the 9th Symphony. The Festival has become a permanent part of the cultural landscape of this part of Europe, making the Holy Week a fuller experience. The concept of the Festival is clear: beautiful and diverse music performed by excellent artists in the best concert halls, an exhibition of manuscripts organized by the Jagiellonian Library, and an international symposium prepared by the Academy of Music in Cracow.
Each edition of the Festival is organized around the same principle: solo, chamber and symphony concerts are accompanied by an exhibition of sketches, manuscripts and first editions at the Jagiellonian Library; the whole is completed by academic reflection in the form of an international musicological symposium organized by the Chair of Theory and Interpretation of Musical Work of the Academy of Music in Cracow. All Festival events are organized around a central theme; this year it is "Beethoven and the Music of the Nations of Europe". Polish composers featured include Witold Lutosławski, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, and Krzysztof Penderecki in addition to other European composers such as W.A. Mozart, Giuseppe Verdi, Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert, Antonin Dvorák, and, of course, the guest of honor, Ludwig van Beethoven.
The international musicological symposia that accompany the Festival are documented in books containing the conference papers. They are published by the Academy of Music in Cracow and the Kraków 2000 Festival in two, Polish and foreign-language, versions.
Another physical identifying mark of the Festival are beautiful programme booklets (in two language versions: Polish and English) published to coincide with the Festival. In addition to basic information on the repertoire and artist biographies, they contain essays on all works performed at the concerts and a list of autographs on display at the exhibition.
In October 2001 the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival became a member of the European Festivals Association in Geneva. This momentous event has validated the importance of the Festival not only as the musical emblem of Poland, but also as a cultural phenomenon that gathers a humanistic audience around Beethoven's Enlightenment idea of uniting the community around a common set
of values. This year's Festival and its theme are centered around celebrating Poland's entrance into the European Union, which will take place a month after the festival, and for this reason the festival has been moved from Cracow to Warwaw. As Artistic Director Elżbieta Penderecka told Maciej Mroczek of The Warsaw Voice on 24 March 2004, "I was really determined to promote a new image of the capital.[...] Warsaw is the capital of the country joining the EU.[...] This is why we have established contacts with the owners of shops and restaurants. We mean to promote the festival and also Warsaw."
For a full list of daily concert programs, visit 
The Opening Gala for the Fifth Annual Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles will take place on 22 April at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. This year's Gala screening will be Body (Cialo) by Tomasz Konecki and Andrzej Saramanowicz. The 2004 Hollywood Eagle Award will also be presented during this evening. The rest of the Festival takes place from 23 - 29 April at the Laemmle's Monica 4Plex Theater and will celebrate the "Holiday of Polish Cinema" with the screening of 15 feature films, 6 documentaries and 6 shorts. The Festival organizers are once again proud to display the most recent achievements in Polish cinema, including a few directorial debuts.
Some of this year's films include Julia Walking Home [Julia wraca do domu] by Agnieszka Holland, Pornography [Pornografia] by Jan Jakub Kolski, Tomorrow's Weather [Pogoda na jutro] by Jerzy Stuhr, Egoists [Egoisci] by Mariusz Trelinski, Changes [Przemiany] by Lukasz Barczyk, Zhoorek [Zurek] by Ryszard Brylski, Squint Your Eyes [Zmruz oczy] by Andrzej Jakimowski, The Star [Gwiazdor] by Sylwester Latkowski, and The Woodstock Stop—The Most Impressive Polish Movie [Przystanek Woodstock—najglosniejszy film polski] by Jerzy Owsiak.
Etude in E Major, Op. 10 no. 3 
Toni Marie Palmertree (pictured at left), a 21 year-old sophomore at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, won First Prize in the 2004 Sembrich Voice Competition organized by the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York City. Ms. Palmertree will receive a cash scholarship prize of $1000, and has been invited to the International Moniuszko Vocal Competition in Warsaw in May. Second Prize was won by Melanie Gall, a native Canadian currently in the Master's Program at Brooklyn College, who will receive a $750 cash scholarship; and Korean- born Jung Joo-Yung, completing her Professional Studies at the Manhattan School of Music, received Third Prise, which includes a $500 cash scholarship.Contestants were required to prepare a representative repertoire including songs and arias, including two selections by Moniuszko. The Competition honors Marcella Sembrich, the great Polish soprano who won an international reputation and established the voice faculties at both the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute. Previous winners include Barbara Hendricks and Jan Opalach. Held every three years, the next Sembrich Voice Competition will take place in Spring 2007.
During a gala ceremony at Warsaw's Teatr Polski in January, the weekly magazine Polityka [Politics] presented its 11th annual symbolic cultural awards known as the Paszporti Polityki. Each year, Polityka weekly recognizes artists or all media who demonstrate far-reaching originality as well as a penchant for exploration and for exceeding the boundaries of convention.
The winner in the music catagory was 22 year-old violinist, Kuba Jakowicz. Jakowicz was selected for his mature level of performance, ability to exceed the stereotype of a child genius, and for his ambitious choice of repertoire. In his career so far, he has had significant international success as a competitor, performer and recording artist. For more information on prize-winners in other categories, visit the Adam Mickiewicz Institute website, 
For continuously updated information about Chopin events around the world, visit 
Jewish composer, focused predominantly on sacred music and was noted for
several tunes that he wrote for Reform Synagogues, imitating Hasidic-style
rhythmic patterns, and asking the congregation to sing along with the choir.
Janowski also wrote a variety of Yiddish songs, so most of his music is very
tuneful and attractive. Naziemiec's interpretation of his music was very
warmly received by the enthusiastic, predominantly Jewish audience.
The warmth and enthusiasm expressed by the public remained the same in the
second concert given recently by Ms. Naziemiec. In a chamber/orchestral
concert held at the Alfred Newman Recital Hall, University of Southern
California, on 12 March 2004, Karolina Naziemiec was joined by Limor Toren on
violin, Jerome Gordon on viola, Edith Orloff on piano, and a chamber orchestra
conducted by Maxim Eshkenazy. The program, from Bach to Lutosławski revealed
the versatility of her talent. Two sonatas filled the first half of the
program, Johann Sebastian Bach's First Gamba Sonata, BWV 1027, and Dmitri
Shostakovich Sonata for Viola and Piano, op. 147. Not being the greatest fan
of Shostakovich's chamber music (with one notable exception of his String
Quartet No. 8) I could only admire the stamina of the violist who, with great
determination and gusto, took us through the interminable length of the
sonata. In contrast, the second half of the program was enjoyable in its
entirety. Witold Lutosławski's Bucolics was played in a version for two
violas, but did not lose any of its rustic charm in the process. W.A.
Mozart's Symphonie Concertante for violin and viola, KV 364, was the crowning
achievement of the evening. The violist showed here her dexterity, musicality
as a soloist, as well as her ability to play in a duet and engage in exchanges
with the orchestra at the same time. The timing was impeccable, the tone—lovely, the whole impression—charming and delightful.
[MT]
The West Coast premiere of the Silesian Dance Theatre's THOUGHTS THAT LIE TOO DEEP FOR TEARS took place on 24 March 2004 (and was repeated on the 25th) at the 
Lovers of Poland and lovers of dance enjoyed a special treat this March when two ballet dancers and their Director from the National Ballet School (Łódz) came to San Francisco. Joanna Jablonska, Marlena Pietrzykowska, and Director Izabela Gorzkowska-Glowacka were the guests of The Lively Foundation, San Francisco. The visit by these dancers and the Director was a historic event. It was the first time Polish dancers have travelled to San Francisco to perform and the first time Polish dancers worked with an American choreographer to present new dances. The dancers were in San Francisco from 19-29 March learning new choreography, and they participated in the Lively Dance Festival on 26-28 March. To read more about this event, visit 
