# How come old penderecki better than his new works?



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

St Luke passion = brilliant marveleous
Te deum = intemporal masterpiece
and ect 

Im like you guys on Penderecki i worship his older stuff more and dig it more ,except The seventh gates of jerusalem that i like pretty mutch.

Can someone who know Penderecki more than i do , please elaborated more, i wont a musicologist answers, something bold and intellectual.Guys please impress me???

:tiphat:


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I'm no musicologist, but am a Penderecki fan and read up on him. He shifted away from avant garde becasue he feared it would go too far and become destructive. He then focussed on a couple of melodic intervals starting in the 70's, and his music became more traditional. His Symphony No. 2 is a lot more mellow than his first, and earlier stuff. Personally like his earlier stuff more too. Just listened to his 7 gates, and didn't find it too interesting.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I have the naxos box set of his symphonies, and the newer works don't grab me, either. Like De Profundis, I'm willing to be educated.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

It may be that Penderecki is only a so-so composer, not a great one, but in his early experimental soundscapes, such as the Threnody, which I greatly admire, presents works of art that achieve a uniqueness that isn't matched by his more so-so ordinary later pieces. At least he has a remarkable early phase writing avant-garde masterpieces. Most so-so composers merely flounder in the ordinary, and then are forgotten.

And I say this being a Penderecki fan. I have the box set of the complete symphonies, too. And much more of the man's music, early and late. I love the _Thren_, the _Luke Passion_, and even the Second Symphony. But there is much there not to fall in love with, too. Maybe too much. And that's the problem.

Still, could Penderecki have continued challenging the norms and moving ever onward creatively in the avant-garde? Maybe not. Many great innovators have only so much innovation in them. They cannot do it all, they cannot keep things flowing continuously. That's why progress takes more than one intellect.

Penderecki has given us much to cherish. Let us not expect the impossible from the man.


----------



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Penderecki has given us much to cherish. Let us not expect the impossible from the man. Good point SONNET CLV.

:tiphat:


----------



## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

SONNET CLV is right on the mark. You should be impressed deprofundis


----------



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

SONNET CLV is right on the mark. You should be impressed deprofundis, i am deeply sir Vassks, SONNET CLV nEver disapointed me in his post and taste.He know his music, good job SONNET CLV.


----------



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

I have only just started to discover Penderecki, via the Threnody and the seventh symphony, both of which I love, as different as they are from one another. 

Only time can tell whether Penderecki will eventually be considered among the greats.


----------



## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

The first music I heard by Penderecki was hod later works and I thought it was great immediately. This is the music I associate with Penderecki and he is one of my favourite living composers.


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I am a huge Penderecki fan.

I find much to love from his avant garde period, and from his more traditional period.

Violin Concerto No. 2 Metamorphosen from 1992-95 is one of my favorite violin concertos by any composer.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> I have the naxos box set of his symphonies, and the newer works don't grab me, either. Like De Profundis, I'm willing to be educated.


My feeling is that the recordings conducted by the composer himself are more intense and gripping that the Wit recordings on Naxos. I feel the same way when comparing Wit's Lutoslawski to that composer's recordings. I'm thinking of picking up the Penderecki Symphonies box on the Dux label. Not that Wit hasn't done a good job with a lot of this music, but I feel he doesn't always pull the best performance out of the orchestra. His Threnody is very disappointing. But his Polymorphia is quite gripping.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

deprofundis said:


> St Luke passion = brilliant marveleous
> Te deum = intemporal masterpiece
> and ect
> 
> ...


I agree with your selection here. Some of the earlier orchestral works and later concertos are good too, though.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

The clarinet quartet/quintet CD on Naxos is excellent, if more conventional than his early works.


----------



## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I prefer new Penderecki.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I like both sides of the Penderecki coin, but with some of his later work there is a whiff of 'Penderecki is as Penderecki does' to me. Still, I'd rather have that than nothing at all, and I especially like his chamber works from either era. I gather he's actually completed his 6th symphony at last - any word on this?


----------



## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I've always seen Penderecki as a fairly simplistic composer, when it comes to instrumental music at least. I think his style only really changed in its surface aesthetics, the engine is pretty much the same. He seems to be at his best when working with a text, and in that mode he shows he is capable of some terrific stuff. _Die Teufel von Loudon_, for example, is among the best operas of the 20th century.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I recall that for one of the first theatre courses I had as an undergrad, an acting class, we were assigned to perform a story-telling dance to a musical selection of our choice. The Nonesuch album featuring works by Penderecki and Xenakis (my first encounter with these two composers) had just recently been released and of course I had bought it, having an interest even then in experimental avant-garde music.









I selected to do my dance piece to Penderecki's _De Natura Sonoris_, a seven minute selection on the record. I envisioned something having to do with creation and birth, experience and enlightenment, and eventual death and oblivion. Which is what I attempted to choreograph to that music. I remember having a tough time simply learning the piece so that I could organize it into sections for my choreography. I don't remember whether I was very successful or not doing the dance, but I do know that the music "freaked" everyone out. This was not tonal theatre music, certainly.

I still have a fondness for _De Natura Sonoris_, which remains a favorite piece of contemporary music for me. And though I no longer dance to the piece, I do on occasion blast it on my stereo system and sit in awed stillness listening to THE SOUND. This is somewhat music for Kurtz in his Congo hideaway in Conrad's novella _Heart of Darkness_. It remains interesting even after all these decades.

Penderecki penned a second _De Natura Sonoris_, which I think is titled _De Natura Sonoris II_, but I've never been as fond of it as I am of the first rendition. Still, it is interesting, too. Early Penderecki has that quality.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The short answer: the older avant-garde stuff was "music of the Devil," and the newer stuff is very tonal, and as we all know, tonality represents God. So, the older stuff is better, because the Devil is more interesting than God; we can relate to him better, at least.


----------



## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

If newer Penderecki is tonal, I don't know how to explain the abundance of notes that sound quite off. If that truly represents God, perhaps that explains why the world is in so much chaos these days.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Or rather, some of us prefer a more complete picture, both facets included. It seems more truthful.


----------



## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> Or rather, some of us prefer a more complete picture, both facets included. It seems more truthful.


Truthful to what? Music isn't about truth. It is about vision. I don't see why anyone would want terrible stuff to be in music simply because there is terrible stuff in life.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

JAS said:


> Truthful to what? Music isn't about truth. It is about vision. I don't see why anyone would want terrible stuff to be in music simply because there is terrible stuff in life.


That is a very old discussion in art - what should be included and dealt with.

The way you say it here, you actually only want static idylls then. You´d have to reject more or less all of Western Art in that way, so that´s probably not what you really mean.


----------



## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> That is a very old discussion in art - what should be included and dealt with.
> 
> The way you say it here, you actually only want static idylls then. You´d have to reject more or less all of Western Art in that way, so that´s probably not what you really mean.


Which, of course, is why that is not at all what I am saying.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Good. ..............................


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think that his music has a sense of darkness and depth which matches that of others of similar nature (eg. Schnittke). The sounds of his experimental works are fascinating, and I can't avoid separating them from the post-Holocaust nuclear age. In other words, this is music which isn't easy to take.

I had several discs but have only kept the Naxos one with three choral works. The early Aus Den Psalmen Davids bears influence of Stravinsky and Orff, the Dies Irae is from the experimental period and most aptly was premiered at Auschwitz, and the Symphony No. 8 goes back to pick up the thread of Mahler. The texts are sung in Polish, Latin and German, respectively.


----------



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I'm very grateful for this thread. Listening to Symphony #3 now, which is very nice music to me. Reminds me a little of Honegger.


----------



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

From Wikipedia:

Around the mid-1970s, while he was a professor at the Yale School of Music, Penderecki's style began to change. The Violin Concerto No. 1 largely leaves behind the dense tone clusters with which he had been associated, and instead focuses on two melodic intervals: the semitone and the tritone. This direction continued with the Symphony No. 2, Christmas (1980), which is harmonically and melodically quite straightforward. It makes frequent use of the tune of the Christmas carol Silent Night.

Penderecki explained this shift by stating that he had come to feel that the experimentation of the avant-garde had gone too far from the expressive, non-formal qualities of Western music: 'The avant-garde gave one an illusion of universalism. The musical world of Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez and Cage was for us, the young – hemmed in by the aesthetics of socialist realism, then the official canon in our country – a liberation...I was quick to realise however, that this novelty, this experimentation and formal speculation, is more destructive than constructive; I realised the Utopian quality of its Promethean tone'. Penderecki concluded that he was 'saved from the avant-garde snare of formalism by a return to tradition'.

end quote.


----------



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Penderecki also looks like the average baker or insurance salesman, like so many of the great composers.


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Simon Moon said:


> I am a huge Penderecki fan.
> 
> I find much to love from his avant garde period, and from his more traditional period.
> 
> Violin Concerto No. 2 Metamorphosen from 1992-95 is one of my favorite violin concertos by any composer.


Since I posted this last year, I find myself not liking his later period nearly as much as I did then. I recently bought a CD with a couple of later symphonies, and they seem boring and uncreative to me.

Still like his avant-garde period, and his 2nd violin concerto.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

regenmusic said:


> Penderecki also looks like the average baker or insurance salesman, like so many of the great composers.


Looks very much like the elderly Saint-Saens these days.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> The short answer: the older avant-garde stuff was "music of the Devil," and the newer stuff is very tonal, and as we all know, tonality represents God. So, the older stuff is better, because the Devil is more interesting than God; we can relate to him better, at least.


Oh yeah, that's it! I can sleep peacefully now.


----------



## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

I sort of enjoy the 2nd violin concerto, subtitled _Metamorphosen_ and already mentioned on this thread a few times, but mostly because of Anne-Sophie Mutter's stunningly raw interpretation - her recording truly is a testament to her incredible abilities as an interpreter of contemporary music.

Apart from that, Penderecki's music tends to leave me rather unimpressed. It just doesn't grab me. I've listened to a few of his more recent works and I feel nothing. To each their own, I guess!


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Here's the best version of Threnody, conducted by Maderna.


----------

