Multi-award winning Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki was one of the world’s leading and most outstanding musicians and human being of his generation. With him, the music world has lost an outstanding representative of that generation of composers who received their original impulses from the avant-garde of the 20th century.

In over 60 years of composing activity, Krzysztof Penderecki has created nearly 150 pieces of varied orchestration, size, composing techniques, genres, forms and symbolic message. He once said: “I am one of the last representatives of the large form who writes everything: symphonies, operas, oratorios, concertos and chamber music. I work like a 19th century composer who had to be able to do everything, including conducting.”

Works like Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), St. Luke Passion (1966), Cello Concerto No. 2 (1982) written for Mstislav Rostropovich, Polish Requiem (1984), Symphony No. 3 (1995), Violin Concerto No. 2 “Metamorphosen” written for Anne-Sophie Mutter (1995), the opera “The Devils of Loudun”, Symphony No. 7  “The Seven Gates of Jerusalem” (1996) and the Trumpet Concertino dedicated to Gábor Boldoczki are masterworks of our time.

During our wonderful collaboration in the last 15 years of his life, we could present most of these works in leading international concert halls.

Penderecki also wanted to pass on his love of music to future generations. Not far from his country residence in Lusławice, he built the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music, which became a meeting place for musicians from all over the world.

With his eighth symphony Songs of Transience, in which Penderecki set texts by famous poets around the theme of “forest” and “tree”, he was able to combine his two great passions: Music and nature. For his private arboretum, he collected over 1.700 different tree species. Just as the list of patrons, dedicatees and countless awards provides information about his recognition in the international music world, the trees that the conductor, who was in demand worldwide, brought back from his concert tours tell of his special love for and connection with nature. It was only after his genre contributions seven and eight that Penderecki completed his 6th Symphony, epitomised “Chinese Songs“, for its world premiere in Guangzhou in 2017. Beyond the opera stages and concert halls, his music became known to an audience of millions in cinema films such as “The Shining“, “Shutter Island” and “The Katyn Massacre“.

In January 2020 we could also present his 6th symphony and his Viola Concerto arranged for violoncello, interpreted by László Fenyö, together with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich in Zurich. A special memory which we will never forget.

We are very grateful and honoured for all that we could experience and create with this unique personality, musician, composer and human being.