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KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI APPLAUDS STANDING STATE YOUTH ORCHESTRA OF ARMENIA
21:31, 13 January, 2014
YEREVAN, JANUARY 13, ARMENPRESS. The series of events entitled
"Days of Krzysztof Penderecki in Armenia" commenced solemnly in "Aram
Khachaturian" concert hall with the joint performance of State Youth
Orchestra of Armenia and cellist Bartosz Koziak on January 13. The
minister of Culture of the Republic of Armenia Hasmik Poghosyan,
Krzysztof Penderecki with accompaniment of his wife Elżbieta
Penderecka attended the festive evening.
"Yerevan perspectives" begins its 15th anniversary festive year with
the days of the great composer of our times Penderecki. The series of
"Penderecki days" already traditional is held for the third time this
year," the leader of "Yerevan perspectives" festival Stepan Rostomyan
stated as reported by "Armenpress". By the offer of Rostomyan the
audience congratulated the birth anniversary of the great maestro
standing up.
Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki is a Polish composer and conductor. The
Guardian has called him Poland's greatest living composer. Among
his best known works are his Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima,
St. Luke Passion, Polish Requiem, Anaklasis, four operas, eight
symphonies and other orchestral pieces, a variety of instrumental
concertos, choral settings of mainly religious texts, as well as
chamber and instrumental works.
Born in DÄ~Ybica to a lawyer, Penderecki studied music at Jagiellonian
University and the Academy of Music in Kraków. After graduating from
the Academy of Music, Penderecki became a teacher at the academy
and he began his career as a composer in 1959 during the Warsaw
Autumn festival. His Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string
orchestra and the choral work St. Luke Passion, have received popular
acclaim. His first opera, The Devils of Loudun, was not immediately
successful. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Penderecki's composing style
changed, with his first violin concerto focusing on the semitone and
thetritone. His choral work Polish Requiem was written in the 1980s,
with Penderecki expanding it in 1993 and 2005.
During his life, Penderecki has won several prestigious awards,
including the Commander's Cross in 1964, the Prix Italia in 1967 and
1968, the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1964,
three Grammy Awards in 1987, 1998 and 2001, and the University of
Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1992.
Around the mid-1970s, while he was a professor at the Yale School of
Music, Penderecki's style began to change. The Violin Concerto No. 1
largely leaves behind the dense tone clusters with which he had been
associated, and instead focuses on two melodic intervals: the semitone
and the tritone. Some commentators compared this new direction to Anton
Bruckner. This direction continued with the Symphony No. 2, Christmas
(1980), which is harmonically and melodically quite straightforward. It
makes frequent use of the tune of the Christmas carol Silent Night.
Penderecki explained this shift by stating that he had come to
feel that the experimentation of the avant-garde had gone too
far from the expressive, non-formal qualities of Western music:
'The avant-garde gave one an illusion of universalism. The musical
world of Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez and Cage was for us, the young -
hemmed in by the aesthetics of socialist realism, then the official
canon in our country - a liberation...I was quick to realise however,
that this novelty, this experimentation and formal speculation, is
more destructive than constructive; I realised the Utopian quality
of its Promethean tone'. Penderecki concluded that he was 'saved from
the avant-garde snare of formalism by a return to tradition'.
In 1980, Penderecki was commissioned by Solidarity to compose a piece
to accompany the unveiling of a statue at the GdaÅ~Dsk shipyards to
commemorate those killed in anti-government riots there in 1970.
Penderecki responded with Lacrimosa, which he later expanded into
one of the best known works of his later period, the Polish Requiem
(1980-84, 1993, 2005). Again the harmonies are rich, although there
are moments which recall his work in the 1960s. In recent years, he has
tended towards more traditionally conceived tonal constructs, as heard
in works such as the Cello Concerto No. 2 and the Credo. He conducted
Credo on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Helmuth Rilling, 29
May 2003. In celebration of his 75th birthday he conducted three of
his works at the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2008, among them Ciaccona
from the Polish Requiem.
In 2001, Penderecki's Credo received the Grammy Award for best choral
performance for the world-premiere recording made by the Oregon Bach
Festival, which commissioned the piece. The same year, Penderecki
was awarded with the Prince of Asturias Prize in Spain, one of the
highest honours given in Spain to individuals, entities, organizations
or others from around the world who make notable achievements in the
sciences, arts, humanities, or public affairs.
Invited by Walter Fink, he was the eleventh composer featured in the
annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2001.
Penderecki received an honorary doctorate from the Seoul National
University, Korea in 2005, as well as from the University of Munster,
Germany in 2006. His notable students include Chester Biscardi
andWalter Mays.
Penderecki has three children, a daughter from his first marriage,
and a son and daughter with his current wife, Elżbieta Solecka, whom
he married in 1965. He lives in the Kraków suburb ofWola Justowska. He
is working on an opera based on Phèdre by Racine for 2014 and wishes
to write a 9th symphony.
http://armenpress.am/eng/news/746057/krzysztof-penderecki-applauds-standing-state-youth-orchestra-of-armenia.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
21:31, 13 January, 2014
YEREVAN, JANUARY 13, ARMENPRESS. The series of events entitled
"Days of Krzysztof Penderecki in Armenia" commenced solemnly in "Aram
Khachaturian" concert hall with the joint performance of State Youth
Orchestra of Armenia and cellist Bartosz Koziak on January 13. The
minister of Culture of the Republic of Armenia Hasmik Poghosyan,
Krzysztof Penderecki with accompaniment of his wife Elżbieta
Penderecka attended the festive evening.
"Yerevan perspectives" begins its 15th anniversary festive year with
the days of the great composer of our times Penderecki. The series of
"Penderecki days" already traditional is held for the third time this
year," the leader of "Yerevan perspectives" festival Stepan Rostomyan
stated as reported by "Armenpress". By the offer of Rostomyan the
audience congratulated the birth anniversary of the great maestro
standing up.
Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki is a Polish composer and conductor. The
Guardian has called him Poland's greatest living composer. Among
his best known works are his Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima,
St. Luke Passion, Polish Requiem, Anaklasis, four operas, eight
symphonies and other orchestral pieces, a variety of instrumental
concertos, choral settings of mainly religious texts, as well as
chamber and instrumental works.
Born in DÄ~Ybica to a lawyer, Penderecki studied music at Jagiellonian
University and the Academy of Music in Kraków. After graduating from
the Academy of Music, Penderecki became a teacher at the academy
and he began his career as a composer in 1959 during the Warsaw
Autumn festival. His Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string
orchestra and the choral work St. Luke Passion, have received popular
acclaim. His first opera, The Devils of Loudun, was not immediately
successful. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Penderecki's composing style
changed, with his first violin concerto focusing on the semitone and
thetritone. His choral work Polish Requiem was written in the 1980s,
with Penderecki expanding it in 1993 and 2005.
During his life, Penderecki has won several prestigious awards,
including the Commander's Cross in 1964, the Prix Italia in 1967 and
1968, the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1964,
three Grammy Awards in 1987, 1998 and 2001, and the University of
Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1992.
Around the mid-1970s, while he was a professor at the Yale School of
Music, Penderecki's style began to change. The Violin Concerto No. 1
largely leaves behind the dense tone clusters with which he had been
associated, and instead focuses on two melodic intervals: the semitone
and the tritone. Some commentators compared this new direction to Anton
Bruckner. This direction continued with the Symphony No. 2, Christmas
(1980), which is harmonically and melodically quite straightforward. It
makes frequent use of the tune of the Christmas carol Silent Night.
Penderecki explained this shift by stating that he had come to
feel that the experimentation of the avant-garde had gone too
far from the expressive, non-formal qualities of Western music:
'The avant-garde gave one an illusion of universalism. The musical
world of Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez and Cage was for us, the young -
hemmed in by the aesthetics of socialist realism, then the official
canon in our country - a liberation...I was quick to realise however,
that this novelty, this experimentation and formal speculation, is
more destructive than constructive; I realised the Utopian quality
of its Promethean tone'. Penderecki concluded that he was 'saved from
the avant-garde snare of formalism by a return to tradition'.
In 1980, Penderecki was commissioned by Solidarity to compose a piece
to accompany the unveiling of a statue at the GdaÅ~Dsk shipyards to
commemorate those killed in anti-government riots there in 1970.
Penderecki responded with Lacrimosa, which he later expanded into
one of the best known works of his later period, the Polish Requiem
(1980-84, 1993, 2005). Again the harmonies are rich, although there
are moments which recall his work in the 1960s. In recent years, he has
tended towards more traditionally conceived tonal constructs, as heard
in works such as the Cello Concerto No. 2 and the Credo. He conducted
Credo on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Helmuth Rilling, 29
May 2003. In celebration of his 75th birthday he conducted three of
his works at the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2008, among them Ciaccona
from the Polish Requiem.
In 2001, Penderecki's Credo received the Grammy Award for best choral
performance for the world-premiere recording made by the Oregon Bach
Festival, which commissioned the piece. The same year, Penderecki
was awarded with the Prince of Asturias Prize in Spain, one of the
highest honours given in Spain to individuals, entities, organizations
or others from around the world who make notable achievements in the
sciences, arts, humanities, or public affairs.
Invited by Walter Fink, he was the eleventh composer featured in the
annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2001.
Penderecki received an honorary doctorate from the Seoul National
University, Korea in 2005, as well as from the University of Munster,
Germany in 2006. His notable students include Chester Biscardi
andWalter Mays.
Penderecki has three children, a daughter from his first marriage,
and a son and daughter with his current wife, Elżbieta Solecka, whom
he married in 1965. He lives in the Kraków suburb ofWola Justowska. He
is working on an opera based on Phèdre by Racine for 2014 and wishes
to write a 9th symphony.
http://armenpress.am/eng/news/746057/krzysztof-penderecki-applauds-standing-state-youth-orchestra-of-armenia.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress