Welcome to The World and Music of Krzysztof Penderecki. I?m Christopher Coleman from the Department of Music and Fine Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University. In the show so far we've been examining the emotional basis of music as the motivating factor behind Penderecki's compositions. My point has been that although much of his music may on the surface sound very different than typical Classical or Romantic era music, behind this surface lies a commonality of expression. Most composers, regardless of the style of music they write, seek to portray in a more or less abstract way, some emotional meaning in their work. They do this by balancing tension and relaxation, creating certain expectations through the various processes of melodic or harmonic writing, through dynamic change or building textures or any of a number of technical means. I've mentioned that composers are psychologists of sound-- I am referring to this process of technical manipulation to create tension and relaxation for the expression of emotional states. And that composers often set up certain expectations, such as the resolution of a particular harmonic pattern, or the arrival of a climactic point; and then delay or even deny those expectations to create unexpected emotional impact; this I've referred to as composers being magicians of sound. Our opening theme music, the ending of Penderecki's Polymorphy for 48 strings, is a good example. The dissonant, harsh noises of the majority of the piece are suddenly and unexpectedly cut off, and the piece ends as Penderecki pulls a figurative rabbit out of his hat, with a major chord--the only such sonority in the entire work.

These expectations and misdirections are conveyed to the audience through the performer. This model sees the performer only as a medium of transmission, much like a radio or CD player. Of course this is far from the truth, as the performer has, from the earliest days, been a most valuable partner in the process. Indeed, the general public has considered performers at least as equals and often superiors in the musical triangle of composer/performer/audience. Consider that in the worlds of both popular music and art music, most people can more easily tell you the names of performers than composers. This is probably inevitable, as the performer is the public face of the music--it is he or she who is actually out in front of the audience. And so today we will examine the relationship between composer and performer and listen to some of Penderecki's music written specifically to explore new technical demands in this music of virtuosity.

Let's open with Pendercki's Capriccio for Tuba in a performance by Hungarian tubist Jozsef Bazsinka.

An unusual and delightful work for one of the most ungainly of instruments, Penderecki's Capriccio for Tuba, written in 1980 for a Penderecki Festival in Poland. Although it may not seem at first to be terribly virtuostic, let me as a brass player assure you that this is difficult indeed. The main challenge lies in the great leaps involved--the melodic line is often broken up into various registers, so that three notes of the melody may be high, the next two notes quite low, the next three high, and so forth. When this registral fragmentation is coupled with a brisk tempo and continuous activity the result can be quite formidable to the performer.

It has become commonplace to no longer think of musical development as progress, but instead as change. No longer would a serious musicologist state that Mozart was a better composer than Monteverdi, or that Classical music is more advanced than Baroque. But in the field of musical performance this is not quite true. Although the standard repertoire may have reached its limits of technical perfection long ago, performers always seek to bring their own interpretation to a work. That the world has plenty of interpretations of the Beethoven piano sonatas, for example, makes a satisfactory and individual vision of these works so much more difficult to create. Rather than continue to play in such a crowded field with works a hundred or so years old, some performers seek to stand out with less familiar literature. And for them, the possibility of interacting with a living composer allows a participation in the creation of a work, which may showcase their particular strengths and abilities: their ability to play higher, or faster, or with a wider expressive range of tone color. It is these very challenges that drive some of the best performers--the desire to push the limits of performance, much like an athlete.

One of the most extraordinary of performers is the German cellist Siegfried Palm. He and Penderecki met in 1963 at a performance Palm gave of Bernd Alois Zimmerman's Sonata for Cello solo. This is an extremely demanding work, and both the composition itself and the bravura performance inspired Penderecki to create his own Sonata for Cello and Orchestra, a thrilling but unrelentingly modern work. Other pieces for the cellist followed, including the Capriccio for Siegfried Palm which we will now hear in a performance by Cecylia Barczyk.

This remarkable piece is practically a catalogue of cello technique. Of particular interest is Penderecki's percussive treatment of the cello, with very aggressive, rhythmic motives repeated without pitch change. The alternations between these figures, the frenetic scrambling of the melodic line, and the astonishing high passages in harmonics all combine to make an unforgettable show-stopper, with a rather plaintive turn at the end.

Penderecki came to his knowledge of orchestration and particularly of string technique through his early training. His first study was violin, and he was quite accomplished as a performer, completing a five year conservatory course in only two years. This solid foundation served him well, as many of his works are either for strings exclusively or feature solo strings prominently.

Let's move from the cello solo we've just heard to Penderecki's first String Quartet, written in 1960. Again, percussive sounds are featured, as the piece begins with non-pitched sounds. Short pitched sounds gradually enter and eventually take over, and the piece then moves to longer, tremolo sounds; the drama is in the overall changes in sonority, activity and dynamics rather than expressive melodic writing. This piece is in some sense a "little brother" to the Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima,almost a chamber music version of that work, exploring similar ideas. Here is a performance by the LaSalle Quartet.

The next work we'll hear is the Capriccio for Oboe and Eleven Stringed Instruments. This work was written for the composer and virtuoso oboist Heinz Holliger in 1965. The playful character of the capriccio is developed from the oboe's glissandi--an extremely difficult technique, I'm told; but there are also sinister overtones to the piece, as the more humorous episodes move off or are interrupted by passages of extreme tension. The piece is a single movement, less than 8 minutes long; this performance is by Marius Pedzialek.

As you can hear, the expressive possibilities of such music are somewhat limited, and constructing a successful composition of any significant length with such unrelenting demands on both performer and audience is difficult indeed. It is no wonder that many composers returned to more traditional melodic and harmonic devices after experimenting with the avant-garde, and Penderecki himself adapted the tonal language of the romantic and early twentieth century periods for his own use. We'll close with an excerpt from Penderecki's much more accessible Concerto for Flute and Chamber Orchestra of 1992.

An excerpt from Penderecki's Concerto for Flute and Chamber Orchestra, originally composed for Jean-Pierre Rampal, in a performance by Petri Alanko, flute, and the Tapiola Sinfonietta conducted by Okko Kamu. Join me next week as we close this series on the World and Music of Krzysztof Penderecki with an examination of his music of contrition.