Word: penderecki
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...20th century, says Stern, "is one of the richest periods in musical creativity." A discriminating advocate of contemporary violin music who has given premieres of concertos by William Schuman, George Rochberg and Krzysztof Penderecki, Stern has had a privileged view of modern musical history; in June he will premiere a work by Britain's iconoclastic Peter Maxwell Davies in Scotland. The phantasmagorical Dutilleux concerto was commissioned by Radio France in celebration of Stern's 60th birthday almost six years ago ("He had problems about coming to an end," says Stern, explaining the delay) and was first performed in Paris last...
Significant premieres by two of today's leading composers might help to change that attitude, however. In Washington two weeks ago, Mstislav Rostropovich led the National Symphony Orchestra in the eight completed movements of Krzysztof Penderecki's Polish Requiem, a work in progress for vocal quartet and chorus that promises to be a major statement, both musically and politically, when it is finished some time next year. And last week in Paris, Seiji Ozawa presided over the world premiere of Olivier Messiaen's first opera, Saint François d'Assise, which is clearly intended...
Despite their radically different compositional styles, Penderecki, 50, and Messiaen have much in common. Both are devout Roman Catholics; their outputs have prominently featured devotional music, notably Penderecki's St. Luke Passion and his Utrenja ("The Entombment of Christ" and the "Resurrection"), and Messiaen's massive piano piece, Vingt Regards sur I'Enfant Jésus, and his work for large chorus and orchestra, La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. Both men are leading composers in their countries, yet each has transcended parochial considerations to become an important international figure. Furthermore, each writes...
...Penderecki has written two operas on religious subjects: The Devils of Loudun (1969) and Paradise Lost (1978), which the composer has called a Sacra Rappresentazione rather than a conventional opera. Paradise Lost, commissioned by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, was the victim of a turgid production that obscured the work's many beauties. Messiaen's Saint François-which resembles no other work in the operatic literature as much as it resembles Paradise Lost in its static, quasi-oratorio quality- is more fortunate all around...
Krzysztof Penderecki: Violin Concerto (Isaac Stern, Minnesota Orchestra, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conductor, Columbia). Stern could easily coast along on the war horses of the repertory, so more power to him for continuing to stretch himself in challenging new works. This somber single-movement piece, composed for him in 1976, is less abstract, more late Romantic, than the experiments in shifting sonorities that made Penderecki's name in the 1960s. Over brooding drumbeats and pedal tones, Stern gets a virtuoso workout in involuted runs and dissonant double-and triple-stops. But what stays in the mind is the sustained, eerie high...