Penderecki: Tren (Threnody), "To the Victims of Hiroshima"

Nonesuch Records releases an album of works by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki and composer/Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood in March 2012. The artists' work was presented side-by-side in two concerts in September 2011, highlighting Penderecki's influence on younger composers, at the European Congress of Culture in Wrocław. In its report on the Congress, which celebrated Poland's presidency of the European Union, London's Independent called Penderecki "Poland's godfather of the musical avant-garde" and Greenwood "the doyen of English art-pop," describing their concert as "rapturously received." The composers went to Kraków's Alvernia Studios immediately after the performances to oversee the recording of the same music, along with one other piece by Greenwood.

The Wrocław concert included two works by Penderecki dating from the early 1960s: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and Polymorphia (for 48 strings), the latter of which inspired the Greenwood piece on the program, 48 Responses to Polymorphia; all three are on the Nonesuch record. An additional piece by Greenwood, Popcorn Superhet Receiver, which was inspired by Penderecki's Threnody, also was recorded for the album. (Greenwood incorporated material from Popcorn Superhet Receiver in his award-winning score for the 2008 film There Will Be Blood, which was also released on Nonesuch.)

For both the concerts and the recording, the pieces were performed by the AUKSO ensemble, which comprises graduates of Poland's Katowice Academy of Music. Penderecki conducted the ensemble in his works and AUKSO's artistic director-the violinist, chamber musician, and conductor Marek Moś-led the group for Greenwood's pieces. The record was produced by Filip Berkowicz-artistic director of the Sacrum Profanum, Misteria Paschalia, and Opera Rara festivals and curator of the Penderecki concerts in Wrocław-and made in association with the National Audiovisual Institute of Poland.

A concert featuring all of the music on the album will take place at Barbican Hall in London on March 22, performed by the AUKSO Chamber Orchestra - the group featured on the Nonesuch recording - led by Penderecki and Marek Moś. The concert forms part of the 10th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival.

Krzysztof Penderecki (b1933) first came to international prominence with his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima of 1960 (track 2 on disc 1 of this set). This lead to more success with the choral work St Luke's Passion. Now established as one of Poland's most important modern composers, Penderecki was at the forefront of a 1960s resurgence of avant-garde music from a country which at that time, it should be remembered, was under a repressive communist government. As well as Penderecki composers such as Witold Lutoslawski, Grazina Bacewicz, Kazimierz Serocki, Tadeusz Baird and Henryk Górecki took the West by storm. The works in this set all date from 1959-74 at a time when the composer was at the height of his new-found celebrity. Many of these 1970s recordings were made within just a year or so of their completion, quite a rare occurence for contemporary music at the time. Hollywood has made wide use of Penderecki's work in films like The Shining, The Exorcist, Shutter Island, Fearless and Children of Men.

Each disc in the set takes the listener on a fascinating journey through the century, composer by composer and work by work, from Russian Romanticism, French Impressionism, English Pastoralism, Atonalism, Neo Classicism right up to Post Modernism, and from as wide a range of countries and genres as possible.