Panufnik

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There's also the chamber Music, which might prove more rewarding to people who aren't convinced by the orchestral works. The Second String Quartet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmnD-xm6ZNE

... I can't find the middle movement on youTube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWbgOwqy2ms

[Stanfordian]

After some recent exposure to the music of Lutoslawski, I've decided to have a better listen to the music of Andrzej Panufnik. I remember him conducting at the Proms in the late fifties when I think he was chief conductor of the Bournemouth SO, and a friend of mine had some pretty scathing views of him. I realise now that my friend's dislike was probably more to do with the contemporary choices that Panufnik made, than his talents as conductor and composer. I know the works of Lutoslwaski pretty well, but much less so in the case of Panufnik.

In my collection I have CDs of his Violin Concerto, the Katyn Epitaph, the Ozawa recording of Sinfonia Votiva ( No. 8 ) and the Sinfonia Sacra with the composer conducting the Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra, but that's about it.

How do others value this composer? At brief acquaintance he doesn't seem as original or stimulating as Lutoslawski, but perhaps I haven't found a good point of entry. Comments would be very welcome, and of course next year sees his centenary.

Hiya Ferretfancy,

Comparing Lutoslawski with Panufnik is like comparing Britten with Walton. In each case the pair of composers is from the same country and are roughly the same age but their music is very different. I urge you not to dismiss Panufnik as I believe that his works take rather longer than those of Lutoslawski to reveal themselves. I love Panufnik's Sinfonia sacra and works such as Nocturne, Polonia, Autumn Music, Landscape. I greatly admire Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra.

[Dave2002]

There's live music in a few weeks - http://www.ocms-music.org.uk/concert...bmf-piano-trio

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There's live music in a few weeks - http://www.ocms-music.org.uk/concert...bmf-piano-trio

And for anyone unable to attend, or wishing to have an idea what Panufnik's Piano Trio sounds like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABQNV8uYNGQ

[Dave2002]

I'm trying to find out more about Panufnik's Piano Trio. I was hoping that I might be able to download the notes from some of the available CDs so that I don't actually have to resort to buying all of them.
This piece was written in 1934 and revised a few times - particularly in 1977. Apart from that, I am Manuel, and I come from Barcelona.

[Boilk]

In some respects he was ahead of his Polish contemporaries, composing works using sliding, slithering densities of string sound as early as the 1940s; but we should remember he had the freedom to expriment, living here in Britain, whereas at the time Lutoslawsky & his contemporaries were working under Socialist Realist edicts. I tend to think of him as a Polish Copland - same bloc-like starkness in the more meditative pieces, bold colours, love of bare fifths.

In some respects he was ahead, in others he was "behind". As S_A hints, the early Nocturne (1947) anticipates (in parts) the 'sonorism' of later composers, e.g. Penderecki. But by the late 1960s he was technically more conservative than some of his compatriots behind the iron curtain. It's unfortunate, and ironic, that he left Poland just two years before the cultural thaw of 1956, as his stated reason was not being able to compose freely outside the stylistic dictat of the state. In his music I sense a man internally shattered by loss of family (WW2) and homeland (defection to the West).

Some of his pieces would benefit from more conciseness, and he did revise quite a lot (the Ozawa recording of Sinfonia Votiva on Hyperion is the first version). A trademark Panufnikism is the never-faraway sound of the tritone, particularly the beautiful tensions and harmonic possibilities created by adding the outer semitones (for example E, F - B, C). Perhaps for this reason the melancholic Sinfonia Concertante would be my desert island Panufnik work.

Could be wrong here, but I think he was the first composer to write music in "full score" where the individual staves may disappear during extended tacit bars, and reappear as the instrument comes in again. Graphically much more pragmatic from the conductor's point of view ... his manuscript (and large-scale architectonics) reveal a man almost obsessed with the need for order, perhaps a response to the total disorder of Nazi-ravaged war-time Warsaw?