Page 312 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

310

I WAS STRUCK BY THE

EMOTIONAL CHARGE

OF THE WORK

THRENODY FOR THE VICTIMS OF HIROSHIMA (1960),
KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI

or many contemporary It is scored for a string orchestra of
IN CONTEXT listeners, Polish composer 52 players, each one with their own
F Krzysztof Penderecki’s 1960 individual line and with the string
FOCUS piece Threnody for the Victims of sections also divided into groups.
Music behind the Hiroshima signaled an innovative The 24 violins, for example, are
Iron Curtain
new phase of music in communist split into four groups of six each, to
BEFORE eastern Europe. Until then, much experiment with locations of sound.
1946 Stalin-appointed Andrei of the region’s music had adhered
Zhdanov imposes a policy of to a traditional, socialist-realist The cenotaph in Hiroshima’s Peace
“socialist realism,” championing style. In Penderecki’s Threnody, Park, Japan, commemorates those who
conventional music in eastern however, audiences were exposed lost their lives in the atomic bombing
Europe and shunning avant- to an unprecedented soundscape of Hiroshima, from which Threnody
garde compositions. of strings, wails, and whispers. takes its title.
1958 Russian composers such
as Edison Denisov and Sofia
Gubaidulina begin to emulate
western experimental music
and are dubbed dissidents
by the authorities.
AFTER
1961 Hungarian-born,
Austrian-resident György
Ligeti composes Atmosphères
for orchestra, with its sliding
and combining note clusters.
1970 Witold Lutosławski’s
Cello Concerto is premiered,
bringing him international
success in the wake of social
unrest in his native Poland.

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