One of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century, Krzysztof Penderecki enjoys an unusually wide audience for a representative of contemporary music. Born in Debica (Poland) on November 23, 1933 into a music-loving family of Armenian origin, he took piano and violin lessons as a child and presented his first composition at the age of eight. A student at the Krakow Conservatory before teaching there, he took composition classes at the Academy of Music in 1954. Three years later, his three compositions submitted under pseudonyms each won first prize from the Union of Polish Composers. Influenced by serial music, his early works Strophen, Emanations and Psalms of David were selected for the Festival d'Automne (1959), but it was with Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (for 52 string instruments, 1960) and St. Luke Passion that he achieved international recognition. His use of little-used instruments and sound collages, and his way of composing inclusters and long stretches, brought him closer to musique concrète, particularly in Fluorescences (1962), the premiere of which provoked controversy, as did the opera Les Diables de Loudun in 1969. Between the two parts of De Natura Sonoris (1966 and 1971), Penderecki gradually abandoned this aesthetic for a post-romantic style, retaining only a few avant-garde harmonic effects. Honored with the Knight's Cross of the Order Polonia Restituta (1964), then Commander (1974) and a State Prize (1968), the composer successfully presented the choral work St. Luke Passion (1965). One of the many religious pieces in his repertoire, it was very well received outside the Soviet bloc. He continued in this vein in the 1970s with Dies Irae, Magnificat and Canticum Canticorum Saolmonis(Song of Songs). Appointed professor at Yale University, Penderecki composed a Violin Concerto, the Christmas Symphony No. 2 (1980) and returned to tonal music in his chamber works. In 1980, at the request of the Solidarnosc trade union, he composed Lacrimosa, followed by Polish Requiem (1980-1993). In 2000, his Credo, premiered the previous year, won the Grammy Award for best choral work. Appointed Prince of Asturias in Spain, Krzysztof Penderecki continued his prolific composing and conducting in the 2000s, when one honor followed another. Many of his projects remained unfinished when he died of a long illness at his home in Krakow on March 29, 2020, at the age of 86.
