Andrzej Duda of Poland, Elzbieta Penderecka, Penderecki’s widow, and their daughter, son, and granddaughter, as well as musicians and artists, attended the funeral in Krakow’s southern city.
Penderecki, who was 86, died in Krakow on March 29, 2020. However, COVID-19 restrictions caused a long delay for the funeral of the famous composer.
After testing positive for COVID-19 in Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German President, cancelled his attendance to the service. However Germany’s Ambassador read his message. Penderecki was a German teacher and worked in Germany for many decades.
After a Mass in which his music was played, Penderecki’s cream-colored Alabaster Urn was placed at the National Pantheon Krakow’s St. Peter and Paul Church. Anne-Sophie Mutter was his friend and favourite violinist. She played Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Ave Maria.”
In his homily, Archbishop Wojciech Polek, head of Poland’s Catholic Church said that the whole world of music was saying goodbye to a man who believed music should make people’s lives better. Polak stated that this is especially relevant today, when Ukrainians are being killed in Russia’s invasion.
Duda spoke highly of Penderecki in his address. He was a world-class painter who chose to live and work in Poland, and has richly contributed to the culture.
Duda stated, “In his works, you could hear all that our nation has felt, pain and suffering.”
Steinmeier said that the loss of Penderecki was equally painful for Germans. They had appreciated his music and were grateful for his contributions as an educator.
Steinmeier stated in the message that Penderecki’s music was “composed from a mind full historical, philosophical and reflective knowledge…but also from the heart.” He was a free-thinking and extraordinarily creative person, and he became a vital link between Poland and Germany.
In a read-out message to Penderecki’s widow, he stated that a composer must “bear witness to his times”, to history, truth, beauty, and truth… music helps us to remain human.
Penderecki was a popular composer of contemporary classical music. His powerful and sometimes terrifying music was featured in many Hollywood films, including “The Shining”, Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island”, “The Shining”, “The Shining”, “The Shining”, “The Shining” and “The Exorcist,” as well as “The Shining”, “The Shining”, “The Shining,” “The Shining” and “The Shining.”
His orchestral and chorus compositions, such as “St. His repertoire was even wider than that of “Seven Gates of Jerusalem” and Luke Passion. Rock fans are familiar with him because of his work with Radiohead’s JonnyGreenwood.
Penderecki began his international career at 25 when he won all three top prizes from a young composers competition in Warsaw, Poland in 1959. He wrote one score with his right hand and one with his left hand and asked a friend to copy the third score for him so that the handwriting wouldn’t reveal who they were.
He would win numerous awards, including multiple Grammys. Penderecki was an avant-garde musician in the late 1950s and 1960s. Penderecki won a UNESCO award for his 1960 song “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima”. It is written for 52 strings instruments and can be described as a loud, plaintive scream.
He began to write more traditional music in the 1970s for operas, concertos and symphonies. He composed “Dies Irae”, a major choral piece, in 1967 as an ode to Holocaust victims.
He was a violinist and an educator who built a music centre across the street from his Luslawice home, in southern Poland. Here young virtuosos can perform and learn with internationally renowned masters. His home was surrounded with trees and plants he brought from faraway places to hear his music.