RIP Penderecki

Dammit, Krzysztof Penderecki is dead. Here's the basic story; not using NYT's because of subscription stuff, etc.

The Guardian has a good in-depth analysis of his music in general, and specifically, on both sides of his "great divide." (See below.)

What else to play but the Polish Requiem to start? Yes, that's because I came to Penderecki many years ago straight through classical music and not through music scores. I've long been a "collector" of requiems, and his caught my ear.



I'm not a big movies buff. I've never seen "The Shining." That said, per this obit, he complained that Stanley Kubrick committed "harakiri" on his music. His music was also used in "The Exorcist."

And, David Lynch used an unedited extended section of "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" in "Twin Peaks: The Return."



He was definitely an avant-garde composer of sorts. At the same time, he irritated many fans when he moved from atonal compositions, as heard in many earlier works like Threnody, to a more tonal style, like in the Requiem and later symphonies.

Personally, I like music from various places and points in his career on both sides of the divide.

A great later, tonal piece? His Cello Concerto No. 2.



It has a fair degree of the darkness often associated with Penderecki, but it's a more tonal work.

Certainly more tonal than Cello Concerto No. 1.



Read some of the comments!

Finally, his first large-scale work, showing his creativity from the start, including its use of the B-A-C-H musical theme, is his St. Luke's Passion.



This was the first work of his I heard after the Polish Requiem.

Per the Guardian piece linked above, he had both good and not-so-good music on both sides of the atonality/tonality divide. I've not really listened to any of his 21st-century stuff, but I don't think I've missed a lot, per the piece.

Very insightful at times, but I might rank him just a skoosh below Lutoslawski among the modern Polish composers. Although I'm not sure about that. And, like with many composers, their best — or a challenge to find their best — often results in a look at chamber music, in my opinion.

Overall, of classical musicians within the last 75 years (cuts out Rachmaninoff and puts Bartok and Schoenberg, dying in 1945, just in), I'd probably rank him about No. 6-7 on my list, based on mix of personal preference and my attemptedly unbiased assessment of musical skill as composter.

Stravinsky and Shostakovich are 1 and 2.

With Rachmaninoff cut out (he's more modernistic in some ways than some lay snobs think, and many experts appreciate him more now than at his death), I would place Hindemith third. If Bartok is in, he's No. 4, possibly. He's definitely in the top 10.)

Schoenberg would be in my top 10 as a "gotta be there" on musical skills. Not a favorite of mine. He was great for opening the doors of serialism. Second-gen serialists, both Berg and Webern as his second Vienna school disciples, and even more, composers with no direct lineage to him, took serialism into tempos and more, with new creativity and new flexibility.

Ernst Krenek, speaking of those, might come after Hindemith and Bartok, or maybe just a big further back. Elliott Carter would be in this vicinity. Penderecki is in the same neighborhood. Alf Schnittke might be half a step ahead. Karol Szymanowski is in this same neighborhood. Ligeti is a half-step, or more, further back.

Richard Strauss lived long enough to be considered, but I've never been a great fan of his, and much of his later work seemed like scholocky padded farces. Sibelius wasn't quite so bad, perhaps, but he's pretty much the same overall.

Ralph Vaughn Williams? Blech.

Max Regar? Too bad he didn't live longer.

Within post WWI, and post WWII, music, I prefer music that has at least some elements of atonality, and that may have some elements of serialism in its broad sense, but that is not wedded to 12-tone-row ideas.

My entire Penderecki collection on YouTube is here.