Playing Penderecki
I am on a grand quest to find a composer that I like as much as Shostakovich. The latest attempt is Penderecki.
So far my experience of his music has been his 5th and 1st symphonies on this Naxos CD. Well, that’s not entirely true. Before properly exploring a composer you almost always have prior exposure, from films, adverts, or other sources. In this case my prior exposure is from Kubrick’s 1980 film of The Shining: one of my favorite movies, and one of my favorite books. The soundtrack for the entire movie is genius (the use of Bartók, for example, is one of the best bits), and one of the standout moments in the scoring is the use of Penderecki’s Utrenja, which is one of the eeriest pieces of music I know:
Aside from The Shining, my Penderecki experience is limited to being aware of the fairly famous piece Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, which I understand is about ten minutes of screaming strings.
So, not too much to go on. A whisper-chanted slab of fear, and a wailing microtonal monument. Neither of these sound musically similar to Shostakovich. The morose attitude, however, does.
In fact, what prompted me to spend some of my hard-earned eMusic credits was Youtube sampling of some of his other pieces. Particularly, the viola concerto, which reminds me of the Shostakovich viola sonata, but perhaps that is instrumental bias. It was enough to prompt a download, though.
Today, while enjoying the October sunshine and the primary-colored scenery, I listened to the 40 minute 5th symphony. I think it has potential. It yearns, and it has interesting percussion — both of which have historically been promising indicators for me. Also, I didn’t immediately decide it was great, which when it occurs can actually be a bad sign. On the other hand, the first symphony is almost certainly going to be consigned to the curiosities bin. It is intense, and stereotypically avant garde. I don’t think there is enough of the traditional Romantic flavor in it to carry my attention.
One of the difficulties I can forsee with trying to get into the 5th is that it is in one movement. That makes it impossible to do my standard technique of repeatedly playing the movement which grabs me the most, and gradually expanding outward. 40 minutes is a big chunk of time, and despite idyllizing (yeah, y not o) the idea of devoting a comfy chair, a mug of tea and a few hours to concentrating on my music, most of the time my listening is done while walking to and from work. That doesn’t work so well with a forty minute movement.
I cannot quite escape my low-attention-span, gen-Y nature.
Tags: penderecki, the shining, utrenja