Penderecki Conducts Penderecki Album 1

Krzysztof Penderecki - Penderecki Conducts Penderecki Album 1

Performed by Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Siegfried Palm - cello on "Cello Concerto".

Composers who set out to extend the horizons of music often have to wait a long time before recognition comes to them, but this was not so in the case of Krzysztof Penderecki who was born in Debica near Cracow in 1933.
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Above all else Penderecki has interested himself in the color and varying intensities of sound. For the most part his music avoids harmony in any but a coloristic sense, while frequently rhythms are not precisely notated. Often the exact pitch is not specified, instruments sometimes being asked to play the highest or lowest possible notes, or to follow the contour of a wavy line. Even when the pitch is indicated, it sometimes has no significance in the normal musical sense. Into this category come the numerous cluster chords whose density is often increased by the addition of quarter tones - twenty-four notes to the octave are met with frequently. In the instrumental field Penderecki's most revolutionary innovations have concerned the strings. He has invented a whole new range of sounds of indeterminate pitch. For instance, instrumentalists are required to play on a given number of strings behind the bridge as well as across the bridge and on the tailpiece. Despite the novelty of his methods, Penderecki is in no sense a difficult composer, as his wide popularity shows. While his music may have little connection with that of even the immediate past, it has an emotional appeal and a formal logic, both of which are immediately apparent.

FONOGRAMMI for flutes and chamber orchestra

This short piece, one of Penderecki's least known compositions, was written in 1961 . . . The scoring is for three flutes, strings (including a harpsichord) and percussion. Despite an unaccompanied section, during which sounds made by the keys alone are heard, the flutes are treated as an integral part of the chamber orchestra rather than as soloists.

CELLO CONCERTO

In 1967 Penderecki wrote a Concerto for violino grande - a rare instrument that on occasion has been confused with the old viola pomposa, which was half way between a viola and a cello. Penderecki's instrument is a cross between a violin and a viola, having the upper range of the first and the downward one of the second. To achieve this it has five, instead of the usual four, strings. In 1972 this very practical composer decided to adapt this inevitably little performed composition for cello, but when he began to do so he found himself re-thinking in the new medium. As a result the composer regards the Cello Concerto as a virtually new work.

DE NATURA SONORIS No. 2

When De natura sonoris No. 1 appeared in 1966 it surprised people with its lightweight nature, touches of humor and jazz influenced passages - aspects of Penderecki's musical character that were unknown to most people at the time, although they have reappeared since on several occasions. By contrast the longer De natura sonoris No. 2 - first performed towards the end of 1971 at the Juilliard School of Music in New York with Jorge Mester conducting - is decidedly serious. Both works, as their title implies, explore the nature of sound, but, whereas the earlier one requires a large orchestra, the later piece is written for a fairly modest combination. True, the list of percussion instruments is extensive - it includes a piece of train rail - but the only woodwind instrument, if it can be so-called, is a flauto a culisse or birdwhistle, which can play a glissando over the whole length of its compass. Four horns, four trombones, and a tuba are needed, but there are no trumpets. The rest of the orchestra consists of strings, piano and harmonium - an instrument that appears in most of this composer's scores. The bird whistle is employed in conjunction with a musical saw, and the two appear together, playing unspecified notes but beginning as high as possible, almost at the outset.

KANON for orchestra and tape

Although the Polish Radio has a well equipped electronic studio in Warsaw, Penderecki has shown little interest in electronic music. Even in this Kanon, which created quite a sensation when it appeared in 1962, no manufactured, as opposed to played, sounds are heard. Like the well known Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, the piece is for 52 stringed instruments. It consists of three sections, the first of which recurs twice and the second once, these repeats being heard over loudspeakers while the orchestra continues with new material. (Malcolm Rayment)

Tracklisting:

Side One

1. Fonogrammi {6:27}

2. Cello Concerto {14:24}

Side Two

1. De natura sonoris No. 2 {8:53}

2. Kanon {9:29}

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