Krzysztof Penderecki obituary
(The Guardian Germany)

Polish composer and conductor who was a leading figure in contemporary musicThe Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki, who has died aged 86, was an outstanding representative of musical modernism´s success in the 1960s. From the early 70s he became equally emblematic of the subsequent failure of so many of that modernism´s principal pioneers to sustain a lifelong career without abandoning their original principles.In Penderecki´s case, that appeared to mean the substitution of his early trademark emphasis on sound itself, the innovative textures of his choral and orchestral music replacing themes and tonality as the basis for musical construction, with a more lyrical and Romantic style that seemed more like a continuation of 19th-century compositional concerns than a radical reappraisal of received materials. Continue reading...