The festival dedicated to the 85th birthday of Krzysztof Penderecki brought together dozens of instrumentalists, singers and conductors from all over the world at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw for eight days and eleven concerts. Among them were those who had long known the works of the Polish classic of modern music, and those who had the chance to become acquainted with it only recently. Next to the masters were young artists who were just embarking on the path of great art - Penderecki’s music is such that it needs new performing resources, like air. It is filled with especially vital force when it falls into the hands of young people with their inquisitiveness, audacity, greed for recognition, thirst to look beyond the boundaries of notes in order to see what the composer himself saw and comprehended. A share of naivety and not being overloaded with life experience can produce unexpected sound and semantic solutions in the collision with the dense layers of the atmosphere of the works of the main Polish avant-garde artist.
One proof of Penderecki's love for young people is the recently formed Penderecki Piano Trio ensemble of three young soloists. The music of Mr. Krzysztof has been played for a long time; a certain performing tradition has developed; at the same time, this music, even in its structure, is open; it still has a long time to turn into a monument. And the composer himself does not hide the fact that he is only too happy to listen to new bold interpretations of his masterpieces. Despite the impressiveness of the anniversary figure, with the venerable appearance of a professor, Krzysztof Penderecki is incredibly easy to communicate, aphoristic in dialogue, loves to joke and gives the impression of a person who retains a childish attitude towards the world - he never ceases to be surprised.
From Penderecki's works one can study the history of Poland and the world: his legacy in most cases consists of dedications, but even if the play does not have a specific addressee, the dates of creation and music will tell about what happened. The festival showed that the music of Mr. Krzysztof - especially the early and middle periods of creativity - has not yet become accustomed to it; it has not acquired cliches of perception. And the works of later periods of creativity, with an abundance of seemingly familiar romantic intonations, sound today with more and more questions. Even musicologists have not yet acquired a reliable dictionary; they have not yet found stable terms to explain many sound discoveries, which the composer was especially generous with in the 1960s–1980s. The fate of Penderecki's compositions was so happy that the vast majority of their premieres went to great musicians. The first violin concerto in 1977 was dedicated to Isaac Stern and performed by him, the second was written for Anne-Sophie Mutter, the second cello concerto was written for Mstislav Rostropovich, and the “Winter Reise” concert for horn and orchestra was written for Radovan Vlatkovic.
Before Penderecki, in the history of modern Polish music there was Witold Lutoslawski, whose style was distinguished by puzzling higher mathematics, phenomenal precision and extreme, pedantic-surgical calculation in the choice of expressive means. It was as if Chopin was speaking in it, but in the conditions of the second half of the twentieth century. Penderecki’s music is distinguished by a completely different scale and scope: it does not have Chopin’s intimacy, but there are increased demands on the performers, for “Mr. Professor,” as the author of “The Seven Gates of Jerusalem” is often called, is a great connoisseur of the capabilities of the instruments of a symphony orchestra.
The evening programs were compiled under the sensitive guidance of Krzysztof’s wife, Mrs. Elzbieta Penderecka, behind whom the composer was like a stone wall. Mrs. Penderecka can answer any question regarding where, when and by whom this or that composition of her husband was performed. One of the evenings consisted of works from that most famous avant-garde period: the First Symphony (1973), Capriccio for Violin and Orchestra (1967) and the First Violin Concerto (1977) and Emanations (1958). The four works were given respectively to four different conductors, just as the Capriccio and the Concerto were given to two different soloists. By the way, this principle of performance by different soloists, conductors and orchestras enriched the performing palette of both the festival and the music itself.
It was an immersion in a composer's laboratory in an intensive search for new means of expression for that time. Sounds were extracted from the violin from all possible zones - from melodic to percussive, from grinding and whistling to a heartbreaking groan. The National Polish Radio Orchestra in Katowice masterfully met this challenge. The composer sent violinists to extreme tests, realizing that the violin, as the main exponent of human individuality, is capable of withstanding anything. The composer seemed to be searching and, like an alchemist, finding the impossible in metamorphoses with sound, identifying borderline states - from solid to liquid and gaseous. Polish violinist Patricia Piekutowska showed phenomenal restraint in performing the emotionally and technically overwhelmingly complex, wildly capricious part in Capriccio.
At the mass in honor of Krzysztof Penderecki at St. John's Cathedral
The program of cantata-oratorio music included two hymns - St. Daniel and St. Wojciech, which appeared in 1997 for the 850th anniversary of Moscow and the 1000th anniversary of Gdansk, and the grandiose Credo, written in 1998. Conductor Maximiano Valdez, after performing this heavy composition, like the cross of Christ, admitted that it was simply impossible to prepare this score formally, without personally getting used to the philosophy of Credo sounds. He called this experience “epiphany,” an insight into the nature of God revealed in its entirety. Three choirs - the Warsaw Boys' Choir, the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Choir and the K. Szymanowski Philharmonic Choir in Krakow - and the Polish Radio Orchestra, together with five vocalists, did not so much “create a fresco on a planetary scale” as they did their best to involve listeners in this powerful empathic experience. By the scale of this painting in particular, Penderecki seemed to prove how shallow man was, how quickly he abandoned solving the complex issues of the universe in favor of comfort and pleasant little things that dull vigilance and stop the intensity of spiritual quests.
At this festival, even chance encounters contributed to understanding the Penderecki phenomenon. And when, after the long, endlessly lasting “Korean” Symphony, director Agnieszka Holland suddenly appeared in the wardrobe, it instantly became clear that Penderecki is a very cinematic composer, who thinks in different-sized shots, editing cuts, and “serialism” in the sense of multi-part production. But the most magical and heartfelt concert turned out to be on the maestro’s birthday, when in the Cathedral of St. John, at a mass dedicated to the composer’s 85th birthday, his Missa brevis was performed by the Polish chamber choir Schola Cantorum Gedanensis under the direction of Jan Lukaszewski. There was so much purity, heavenly light, hope, love and radiance in it, and when the bell rang, it became clear how much this voice meant and continues to mean in the scores of the composer, who meets a person at the moment of his birth, rejoices with him on holidays and escorts you on your last journey.
Krzysztof Penderecki was born on November 23, 1933 in the small Polish town of Debice. The boy’s musical abilities manifested themselves early, and while still at school, the famous Polish composer Artur Malyavsky began studying with him. After finishing school, Krzysztof entered the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, but soon left it and began studying at the Krakow Academy of Music in the class of composer Stanislaw Wierchowicz. There he began composing music.
By the end of his studies, the young composer managed to create several interesting works, three of which - “Stanzas”, “Emanations” and “Psalms of David” - he presented as his diploma work. These compositions of his not only earned high praise from the commission, but in 1959 they received three first prizes at a competition announced by the Union of Polish Composers.
Already in his first works, Penderecki showed that he was not satisfied with traditional musical genres, and he began not only to violate their boundaries, but also to use unconventional combinations of musical instruments. Thus, he wrote the cantata “Trenos”, dedicated to the memory of the victims of the bombing of Hiroshima, for an ensemble of fifty-three string instruments. Among them were violins, violas, cellos and double basses.
In 1962, Penderecki received the Grand Prix at a music competition in West Germany and the right to a four-year internship at the Berlin Academy of Music. By this time, the composer had written a number of works for string instruments, which made his name even more famous. These are, in particular: “Polymorphia” for forty-eight violins, “Canon” for fifty-two violins and timpani, as well as large works on biblical texts - “The Passion of Luke” and “Dies Hire” (Judgment Day) - oratorios in memory of the victims of Auschwitz.
Unlike avant-garde artists who use unconventional rhythms, Penderecki freely combines a wide variety of sounds, both musical and non-musical. This primarily concerns the use of percussion instruments. They help the composer expand the boundaries and sounds of traditional musical genres. Thus, his “Matins” became an example of an unconventional reading of the canonical text. No less indicative is the composition “De nattira sonoris” (Sounds of Nature), where the composer tries to convey the charm of the night forest with the help of music.
At the end of the 60s, Penderecki turned to the opera genre. His first opera - “The Devil of Loudun” - was written in 1968 on a real historical plot - the story of the trial of the priest Urbain Grandier, whom the monks accused of being possessed by the devil, after which the unfortunate man was put on trial and executed. This opera took place on the stages of all the largest theaters in the world. It began to be perceived as a kind of requiem in memory of all those who died for their beliefs.
Following this, the operas “Black Mask” and “King Hugo” appeared. In them, Penderecki also freely combines music, vocals and dramatic action, including actors’ monologues in the musical fabric of the works.
An interesting position is taken by the composer himself, who does not consider himself an avant-garde artist and says that he never broke with musical tradition. He often performs his works as a conductor, believing that this is a necessary component of the composition. “When conducting, I try to make my music more understandable to the conductor and musicians. So during rehearsals I will often add something new to the score,” he said in an interview.
In his compositions, Penderecki widely uses melodies of European music. Thus, based on traditional melodies, the opera “Paradise Lost” (based on the poem of the same name by John Milton) was written. But he never quotes them directly, but always conveys them through his own means, believing that in our time the possibilities of music are much wider and more varied than in the past.
In addition to music, Krzysztof Penderecki is interested in botany. He spends all his free time in his garden, where he cares for trees and grows flowers. But music does not leave him here either. He composes it everywhere: at creative meetings, during classes with students, on numerous trips. For example, he wrote the melody of “Canon” - a choral suite dedicated to the tercentenary of the construction of the cathedral in Mainz - in Krakow in the cafe “Jana Mihalikova”. The composer himself says that what he likes most is not to work in the quiet of his office, but among people.
The composer's success is largely due to the tireless care of him and the help of his wife Elzbieta, who relieves him of all everyday problems and at the same time fulfills the duties of an impresario, organizing his concerts and performances.
About the constant in music
The concept of good music now means exactly the same as it meant before.
(K. Penderecki, composer)
No matter how accurately music expresses the spirit of its time, no matter how new, original ideas its language strives for, there is still something that it cannot part with by its very nature. This “something” is present in its content, and in the composition, and in those features of the form that we define using the phrase “musical language”. We are talking about an artistic impact that evokes a genuine aesthetic experience in the listener. This impact is caused by an appeal to human thoughts and feelings, to images of the surrounding world, always alive and attractive.
Any genuine music, no matter how complex it may be, never abandons what spiritualizes it: this is man in all his complexity, and life with its trials and joys, and nature, and much more that has been the subject of interest of art throughout all times.
Perhaps this is why in the work of the same composer one can find a variety of music - from alarming and even tragic to the brightest and most joyful. A modern composer, like a composer of any era, can still embody images of destruction in his works and at the same time create beautiful, sublime melodies.
Therefore, let us turn again to the music of Boris Tchaikovsky - this time to his Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra.
Boris Tchaikovsky. Concerto for clarinet and chamber orchestra, part I
In this music, the most important features of the composer’s artistic style, his figurative world, marked by the beauty of melodicism, the Russian characteristic of themes - unhurried, soulful and lyrical - were embodied. This kind of music returns the listener to the world of natural, living feelings and moods. It is this property of music that expresses the composer’s deep-seated faith in the moral purity of man, his natural desire for harmony and beauty, as well as the fact that traditional human values do not lose their meaning even today.
From reviews of the works of B. Tchaikovsky
“Passing through his big heart the exciting artistic problems of our time, human sorrows and joys, emotional experiences, the composer was able to say sincerely and deeply the most important thing about the world around him. And perhaps it is precisely this quality of his work that attracts us so much, fascinates us, makes us return to his works again and again” (Yu. Serov, pianist).
“It gives you the feeling that you have found yourself in some kind of rich world, rich in details, just as nature can be rich, as the seashore can be rich... Even, rather, not the seashore, but simply the shore of a Russian river, the shore of a lake overgrown reeds, along which swans or ducks swim and leaves rustle. There is some kind of happiness in music” (A. Mitta, film director).
The desire to understand the natural foundations of art is characteristic not only of music, but also of other types of artistic activity - poetry, prose, painting. In this, artists are trying to resist such trends of the time, when the sphere of main interests consists of things that are primarily practical, such as cars or electronic devices.
What are these natural foundations?
One of the answers is given in the poem “I returned...” by Rasul Gamzatov.
I returned after a hundred years,
From darkness to this earth.
He closed his eyes when he saw the light.
I barely recognized my planet...
Suddenly I hear the grass rustling,
Living water flows in the stream.
“I love you!..” - the words sound
And they shine without becoming obsolete...
A millennium has passed.
I returned to earth again.
Everything I remembered was swept away
Sands of another time.
But the lights of the stars also fade,
Having learned that the sun will come out soon.
And people - as in our days -
They fall in love and hate...
I left and came back again,
Leaving eternity behind.
The world has changed down to its basics.
It is all permeated with novelty.
But still, winter is white.
Flowers in the meadows flicker sleepily.
Love remained as it was.
And the quarrel remained the same.
(Translation by Y. Kozlovsky)
Questions and tasks:
- How do you understand the words of the Polish composer K. Penderecki, included in the epigraph of this paragraph?
- Why do you think one can find a variety of themes, feelings, and moods in the works of one composer? Explain your answer using the example of the work of B. Tchaikovsky.
- Can you agree that the music of B. Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra inherits the best traditions of Russian music? What does this mean? What is new about this music?
- What would happen to art if it refused to embody the human world and reflected only the signs of the times, technological progress, etc.?
- What is the main idea expressed in R. Gamzatov’s poem? Which things does the poet consider to be transitory and which are unchangeable?
Composer Krzysztof Penderecki on how to plant a tree, build a house and write music.
In professional circles it is not customary to call someone great or the greatest. If only because the world of art is incredibly diverse and every creator - big and small - finds his place in it.
But Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich are special names. We often debate whether any of the living will fall into this pantheon.
Those who were lucky enough to visit the Belarusian Philharmonic on this historic day on October 7 at the concert of the XII International Festival of Yuri Bashmet “Legends of Modern Classics. Krzysztof Penderecki,” they know for sure that there is such a composer on earth.
The 84-year-old maestro personally arrived at the festival in Minsk at the invitation of his friend and colleague, the famous pianist Rostislav Creamer.
In the first part of the concert, Creamer performed a uniquely complex piano concert by K. Penderecki “Resurrection” in memory of the victims of the New York terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, which sounded poignantly and tenderly.
At the conductor's stand was the Polish conductor and right hand of the composer Mateusz Tworek. The audience gave a standing ovation.
The Grand Maestro took the stand in the second half and conducted his most ambitious Seventh Symphony, “The Seven Gates of Jerusalem,” commissioned by the Jerusalem City Hall in honor of the 3000th anniversary of the holy city.
200 people - choirs, orchestras, soloists, a reader - took part in the performance of this grandiose musical canvas, comparable in power only to Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Verdi's Requiem.
Menacing and majestic, like a voice from heaven, the biblical texts sounded in the mouth of a hundred-voice choir. A huge tubephone, specially brought from Warsaw and resembling an anti-aircraft gun, went on a rampage.
The ovation after the concert was such that the walls of the Philharmonic almost collapsed. The public literally bathed the maestro in their enthusiastic love.
“I do not leave any freedom for the performer in my works, so rehearsals are very important to me,”
Penderecki said in one of his interviews. Therefore, preparation for the concert was furious, nervous and exhausting.
The maestro himself was present at all rehearsals without exception, gave detailed advice to Creamer and Tworek, and worked with the orchestra and choir. He filled everything with his spirit, his life-giving energy. And at the same time he was calm, like an Olympian god, and, to everyone’s surprise, did not show the slightest signs of fatigue.
In a half-hour break between rehearsals, I was lucky to talk with him about music and life. I tried to understand what his secret was, but he only smiled mysteriously in response.
- Professor, you have been composing music for 70 years...
Even more! My publisher is also surprised that at my age I still compose music. He believes that by the age of seventy creativity ends. But for me it continues, and that’s normal. After all, even Verdi composed music at a very old age, and composed it very well!
- You were born and studied in Krakow. How did the special atmosphere of this city influence you?
I was most influenced by the work of Tadeusz Kantor. This is my mother's brother - an outstanding man who made a revolution in the theater. He was also an abstract artist. So I was not alone in Krakow.
- But you didn’t immediately become an avant-garde artist?
Of course not! I was interested in folk music and continued to write polonaises and kujawiaks.
- Why did everything change then?
Because I started listening to different music that was composed in the post-war years. At that time there was already an avant-garde in Europe. It started in France and Germany, but also in Poland. My older comrades - Grazyna Bacewicz, Serocki, Tadeusz Baird and, of course, Lutoslawski - created the Polish avant-garde school.
How did the avant-garde penetrate into Poland? After all, in those years the path was blocked by the Iron Curtain, which put a rigid barrier to any “ideological sabotage”?
Among the so-called people's democracies, Poland was the most rebellious. It was in communist Poland in 1956 that the first festival of modern avant-garde music took place, which became our window to the world. Since then it has been held every year and was called “Warsaw Musical Autumn”.
I remember how the Italian avant-garde artist Luigi Nono arrived and brought the music of the Darmstadt school, which almost no one knew in Poland at that time.
And then, the musicians had the opportunity to travel. Even I, as a very young composer, met the Minister of Culture, he gave me a passport and said: “If you don’t come back, I’ll be fired.” And I gave him my word of honor that I would return, and indeed I did.
But for me, the main impetus was working in an electronic music studio that arose in Warsaw back in the 1950s. I listened to a lot of music, and the kind that I could not even imagine before.
It was because of this that I became interested in the avant-garde. This is how my first truly avant-garde works appeared - “Fluorescences”, “Anaklasis”, “Polymorphia”, “Lament for the victims of Hiroshima”...
- Then you won the All-Polish competition for young composers?
This happened a little earlier, in 1959. I really wanted to win because the reward was a trip abroad. I submitted three essays to the competition at once - “Stanzas”, “Emanations” and “Psalms of David”.
I wrote one score with my right hand, another with my left, and gave the third to my friend to copy, so that the handwriting would be different everywhere. And imagine, I took all the prizes then!
- And then they began to receive orders from West Germany?
Yes, I received an order from Deutsche Rundfunk, and I wrote “The Luke Passion.” Soon, two record companies - Harmonia Mundi and Philips - recorded "Passion" on records. I gave one to Shostakovich and told my wife: “Shostakovich will never listen to it.”
But literally 6 weeks later we received a letter from Moscow: “Dear Krzysztof, you gave me a great gift. This is the most ambitious work of the 20th century. Yours Dmitry." This was a great joy for me, because I have always admired Shostakovich as a great symphonist.
-Were you friends with him?
We met Shostakovich on our first visit to Moscow in 1966 and communicated with him until his death. We then met Shostakovich, Weinberg, and many other outstanding musicians. Then we often went to Russia.
- In 1966, you could already travel freely. Why did you come back later?
I was brought up in a home where Polish traditions were very strong. In 1972, I bought an 18th-century palace in Lusławice, 80 kilometers from Krakow, where the sister of the great Polish artist Jacek Malczewski once lived.
I bought it along with the land, restored it and began planting trees of various varieties. At first, my arboretum occupied 3 hectares, and now I have 1,800 varieties of trees on 32 hectares.
Krzysztof Penderecki. Photo – Yuri Mozolevsky - They say you know all their Latin names by heart?
My grandfather taught me this when I was just a boy. He, too, was a lover of trees and nature and knew all the names, but not in Polish, but in Latin. The park is my hobby, into which I have invested a lot of money and soul.
If you want to create a large park, you have to wait half a century or more for the trees to grow. And you need to imagine exactly what the park will look like in 100 years. It's like a symphony - when composing it at the table, you need to imagine exactly how it will sound in the hall.
Why did you leave the avant-garde at one time? I was still a girl then and I remember how shocked we were when in 1981 a record was released with your violin concerto performed by Zhislin. It was absolutely traditional music. And before that, we knew your avant-garde music on records.
This is fine. The composer does not write in one style, but looks for various other possibilities.
- Why, what prompted you to do this?
There is always something that pushes a person not to stop there, but to look further and further. And look not only ahead, but also behind. We cannot move too far from the sources from which we draw.
In addition, for a long time I lived by composing music for the theater. I had close contacts with a variety of theaters, including puppet theaters. In those years, I composed music for 84 performances. I also wrote music for films, especially short films.
There was a period when I was doing a variety of things, including those that I myself hated. But I had to prove that I had an individuality, that I was writing music that no one else would write. Many of those who followed the vanguard did not dare to return. And I dared.
Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki, whose music has recently been heard in new films by Andrzej Wajda, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Alfons Cuaron, premiered his works in Russia twice.
In St. Petersburg, maestro Valery Gergiev conducted his vocal cycle “A sea of dreams blew upon me,” based on poems by Polish poets, performed by the Mariinsky Theater choir and orchestra and three Polish singers. In Moscow, his piece for solo cello Violoncello totale could be heard as many times as the number of competitors who came out to play it in the second round of cellists at the competition. Tchaikovsky.
Russian newspaper: Why did you decide to write a competition piece specifically for cello?
Krzysztof Penderecki: The cello has long been my favorite instrument, despite the fact that I am a violinist. Firstly, I was friends with such cellists as the German virtuoso Siegfried Palm, for whom I wrote my first composition for solo cello. Later I met Mstislav Rostropovich, and we became friends for many years. I wrote three works for him. The play Violoncello totale for the competition. Tchaikovsky allows us to assess the degree of virtuosity of young musicians. Unfortunately, we composers were forbidden to meet with the contestants.
RG: Another Russian premiere of your vocal cycle “A sea of dreams blew over me” took place in the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theater.
Penderecki: This composition was written to mark the end of the Year of Chopin. For the vocal cycle I chose poems, mainly from the 19th century by poets of the so-called Chopin circle.
RG: Why didn't you conduct the Russian premiere?
Penderecki: It is more important for me that this music be performed by other conductors. In addition, Valery Gergiev conducted the premiere of this cycle in Warsaw in January 2011. I was very pleased with his performance. He is a sensitive and deep musician.
RG: In what other countries has your vocal cycle been performed?
Penderecki: So far only in Poland and Russia. Now I am preparing a German version, since the Polish language is difficult to perform, say, for English and German singers. In Russia they can still somehow sing in Polish, although a phrase like “in flattering lischchi” (Russian transcription of Polish words meaning “in shiny leaves.” - V.D.) is a little difficult for Russians.
RG: Do they like poetry in Poland?
Penderecki: Yes, it even seems to me that poetry is better known among us than prose. There are poetry evenings. There is something pan-Slavic about this. Continuing the theme of poetry in music, I am going to write a vocal cycle based on Yesenin’s poems. I have already selected several of his poems. I really love this poet for his simplicity, for his connection with nature.
RG: Much was said and written about the famous Polish avant-garde in the USSR. Do you have similar currents today?
Penderecki: Honestly, no. But everything moves in waves. In Russia there once was a "Mighty Handful". Such phenomena are not accidental. This is how it was with us in the post-war period, after the nightmare of war. We, the young people, then wanted some kind of revival, renewal, we wanted to create new art, new music.
I remember what a miracle electronic music was for us. I was interested in searching in the field of sound, in particular in vocal music, searching for new possibilities of the human voice. I survived the war as a little boy. My first essay, “Lament for the Victims of Hiroshima,” was not accidental. It's completely abstract music, but it had a certain message.
RG: Once upon a time there was Hiroshima, and today there is Fukushima.
Penderecki: Several people have already asked me if I am going to write about the tragedy in Japan. Yes, I have several compositions related to sad historical events: the Polish Requiem, Dies irae, dedicated to the victims of Auschwitz. But I'm not a chronicler. In addition, tragedies happen every day, and we, unfortunately, have become accustomed to this. I stopped writing essays related to extreme troubles, because in the end it is not safe for art.
RG: Like for an artist, this is probably also unsafe?
Penderecki: Don't even know. Who can know how inspiration comes? Only a few musicologists think they know.
RG: Tchaikovsky wrote that inspiration is a guest that does not visit the lazy.
Penderecki: And this is a fact: you need to get up early in the morning and want to do something, then an idea will come. I have been composing music since I was seven years old, so for me this process is natural, like writing an email for others. I usually write one long essay a year, and sometimes longer.
RG: Does composing become easier over time?
Penderecki: It’s more difficult because a person becomes more demanding of himself. Creativity is about constantly outdoing yourself, writing better than you can. Working on the cycle “A sea of dreams blew over me” for two months, I was surrounded by books to choose poems; I have a huge library at home.
RG: Do you maintain a catalogue?
Penderecki: Unfortunately no. There are some things that you spend your whole life planning to do, but never do. There are so many books in my two houses that it is easier to go to a bookstore to buy a book with poems that interest me. But I cataloged the plants and trees of my Arboretum park, which means “collection of trees”, there are about 1,700 names.
RG: You can't resist the temptation to ask you about your creative plans.
Penderecki: I always have more plans than I can implement. There are orders that I must fulfill. I'm going to write the opera "Phaedra" based on Racine. I am planning a lot of chamber music, which fascinates and delights me more and more as I get older, because every note in it should be music.
I want to complete the cycle of symphonies and finish the Sixth, which I will call “Elegy on the Theme of a Dying Forest”: a very relevant environmental theme, because forests continue to be mercilessly cut down on the planet.
RG: Man only takes from the earth and returns nothing...
Penderecki: Returns only garbage.
RG: What is the wisdom of life for you?
Penderecki: At different times I had different theories. Now I’m leaning towards the 18th century version - “back to nature”.