Born: November 23, 1933, Debica, Poland.
Early days. Krzysztof Penderecki was born in Dębica on 23 November, 1933. His father, a lawyer, was a hobby violinist and introduced his son to music. Then he studied composition privately with Franciszek Skołyszewski and was accepted to Cracow conservatory at the age of eighteen.
Studies. In 1951 he studied music at the Cracow University and then (1955-8) with Artur Malawski and Stanisław Wiechowicz at the State Higher School of Music in Cracow.
Creative career. Penderecki's career had a very auspicious beginning. In 1959 he came suddenly to prominence when three of his works (Strophen, Psalms of David, Emanations) won first prizes in a national competition organized by the Polish Composers' Union (he submitted them under different pseudonyms). His reputation quickly spread abroad, notably through perfomances of such works as Anaklasis (written for the 1960 Donaueschigen Festival) and Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960). The latter piece, written for 52 string instruments, brought him international fame. In it, he makes used of extended instrumental techniques (for example, playing on the wrong side of the bridge, bowing on the tailpiece), and creates novel textures. He makes great use of tone clusters (notes close together played at the same time) to evoke the effects and aftermath of a nuclear bomb explosion. Also the Passion according to St. Luke of 1963-5; found an unusually wide audience for contemporary works, and Penderecki soon received important commissions from diverse organizations in Europe and the USA.. In 1980, Penderecki was commissioned by Solidarity to compose a piece to accompany the unveiling of a statue at the Gdansk shipyards to commemorate those killed at anti-government riots there in 1970. Penderecki responded with the Lacrimosa, which he later expanded to become one of the best known works of his later period, the Polish Requiem (1980-84, revised 1993). Here the harmonies are quite lush, although there are moments which evoke his earlier work in the 1960s. The tendency in recent years has been towards more conservative romanticism, however, as seen in works like the Cello concerto No. 2 and the Credo. In 1996 the performance of his piece Seven Gates of Jerusalem, commissioned by the city, commemorated the celebrations of "Jerusalem - 3000 Years." in Israel. He wrote several operas: The Devils of Loudun (1968, based on a text by English writer Aldous Huxley); Paradise Lost (1978, based on the poem by English poet John Milton), The Black Mask (1986, based on a play by German writer Gerhart Hauptmann), and Ubu Rex (1991, based on the play by French dramatist Alfred Jarry.
Conducting. Since his conductor's debut with the London Symphony Orchestra (1973), he has performed with prominent symphony orchestras in the United States and Europe, and he is chief guest conductor of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra in Hamburg. Apart from his own works, his conducting repertoire covers the works of composers from various epochs, with a preference for 19th-century and early 20th-century compositions. In 1987-1990 he served as the artistic director of the Cracow Philharmonic. "). In 2003 he became an Honorary Director of the Principe de Asturias Foundation Choir.
Teaching. Penderecki's teaching career developed in Germany, the U.S. and Poland. He was the prinicipal of the Cracow Academy of Music (from 1972 to 1987. He taught composition at the Volkwang Hochschule fur Music, Essen (from 1966 to 1968); in 1973-78 he lectured at Yale University in New Haven, CT. In 1997 he became Honorary Professor of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and in 1998 - a Honorary Professor of the Beijing Conservatory. In 1997 he published a book entitled "The Labyrinth of Time. Five Lectures at the End of the Century (Warsaw, "Presspublica").
Prizes and awards. Penderecki has won numerous domestic and foreign prizes including the First Class State Award (1968, 1983), Great Art Prize from Nordrhein-Westfalen for his "St. Luke's Passion"(1966), Prize Italia for his "St. Luke's Passion" (1967), Sibelius Gold Medal (1967), Prize Italia for his "Dies Irae" (1968), the Polish Composers' Union Prize (1970), the Herder Prize (1977), Prize Arthur Honegger for "Magnificat” (1977), the Sibelius Prize (1983), the Premio Lorenzo Magnifico (1985), Stefania Niekrasz Medal (1986), the Israeli Karl Wolff Foundation Prize (1987), a Grammy Award (1988), a University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award (1992), and a UNESCO International Music Council Award (1961,1993) In 1990 he received the Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and Chevalier de Saint Georges. In 1993 he got the Order of Cultural Merit (Monaco). Also in 1993 he was decorated with the Commander's Cross with the star of the Order of Polonia and the Institute for Advanced Study at Indiana University, Bloomington awarded him Distinguished Citizen Fellowship. In 1994 he obtained an Austrian honorary distinction for Achievements in Science and Arts. In 1995 and 1996 he received the Primetime Emmy Award of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the USA and in 1998 the American Academy of Arts and Letters made him its Foreign Honorary Member. Also in 1998 he became a corresponding member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste in Munich. In 1999 he received music award of the city of Duisburg. In 2000 he received
Cannes Classical Award as "Living Composer of the Year". In 2001 he got Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts.
In 2000 he got the award for the best composer at the Midem Festival of Cannes. ). In 2002 he received Romano Guardini Prize of the Catholic Academy in Bavaria. 2003 brought him a European Church Music Award and 2004 - Praemium Imperiale.
Honorary doctorates, academy memberships. Krzysztof Penderecki was given honorary doctorates by the Universities of Rochester, Bordeaux, Leuven, Belgrade, Madrid, Glasgow, Poznán, Lucerne, by the St. Olaf College, Northfield/Minn. as well as the Georgetown University Washington, D.C., the Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, the University Leipzig, St. Petersburg and Yale. He is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music (London), the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), the Kungl. Musikaliska Akademien (Stockholm), the Akademie der Künste (Berlin), the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires), Academie Internationale de Philosophie et de I' Art in Bern, Academie Internationale des Sciences, Belles-lettres et Arts in Bordeaux, the Royal Academy of Music in Dublin, the Society of Music Friends (Vienna) and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Encyclopedia Britannica writes: “outstanding Polish composer of his generation whose novel and masterful treatment of orchestration won worldwide acclaim “ while Encarta says: “one of the leading composers of the mid-20th “
This is a modified copy of a biography from the Webpage “Polish Composers” of the Polish Music Center of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. Copied with the permission of Ms. Krysta Close.
See:
Polish Music Center
For the list of Krzysztof Penderecki’s works see the above URL.
Other sources:
Wikipedia
Fundacion Principe de Asturias
Encarta
Encyclopedia Britannica
Music & Vision
Columbia
Schott
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