Chapter 78

Reflections on War:

Britten, Penderecki, and

Others

Post World War II Music• World War II (1939-1945) was unprecedented in the

loss of life, destruction, and upheaval.

• It produced:– a change of style in modern music

– a group of compositions that deal with the theme of warfare.

• Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw (1947) calls for orchestra, male chorus, and narrator– presents the drama of a survivor of Nazi persecution

– narrator recalls a groups of Jewish prisoners who sing a Hebrew prayer before entering a gas chamber.

– this work uses a free version of the 12-tone method and achieves a powerful effect.

The Life of Benjamin Britten (1913–1978)

• 1913 – born in Suffolk, England

• 1930-33 - attends Royal College of Music in London

• 1937 - Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge attracts

attention at the Salzburg Festival

• 1939-42 - lives in America and Canada

• 1948 - founds the Aldeburgh Festival

• 1962 - premiere of the War Requiem

• 1976 - dies in London

Principal Compositions by Benjamin Britten

• Operas: 17 including:– Peter Grimes

– Albert Herring

– Billy Budd

– The Turn of the Screw

– Death in Venice

Britten’s War Requiem

• Benjamin Britten was a pacifist who refused service in the British military during WW II.

• His War Requiem (1961) makes a monumental statement in opposition to all warfare.

• The work is for:– two orchestras– two choruses– solo voices– uses poetry by Wilfred Owen and Latin text from

the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass.

The Destruction of Warfare

Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem was commissioned for the 1962 dedication of a new Cathedral of St. Michael in Coventry, England. The destruction of an earlier gothic cathedral on the same site during World War II (see the picture above) underscores the disastrous effect that warfare has always had on works of art and on our sense of permanence on the earth.

For many, the new cathedral could not replace the older one, either in spirit or in artistic distinction.

Benjamin Britten, War Requiem, 1961, Agnus dei

Ternary form

The Life of Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933)

• 1933 - born in Debica (near Warsaw)

• 1954–58 - studies at the Music Academy in

Kraków

• 1966 - emigration to West Germany

• 1972 - appointed director of the Kraków Music Academy

Krzysztof Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960)

• The aftermath of WW II drove Strauss, Schoenberg, and Britten toward a renewed emotionalism

– a cool detachment that characterized much of modern music between the world wars.

– this new element of espressivo is also found in postwar music by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki.

– his musical materials are experimental and different from his older contemporaries.

• Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (for large string orchestra) deploys large sound masses to communicate the anguished images of the victims of war. [Threnody is a song of lamentation]

• Based on electronic music of the 1950s– use of sound masses (basic element of composition)– notates music by graphic solutions (special notational

symbols)

Principal Compositions by Krzysztof Penderecki

• Operas: 5 including:– The Devils of Loudon– The Black Mask

• Orchestra: symphonies (5), concertos (2 for violin, 2 for cello, 1 for piano), character pieces

• Chorus: works include– St. Luke Passion– Magnificat– Te Deum– Polish Requiem

• Chamber music: string quartets (2), instrumental sonatas

Krzysztof Penderecki, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, 1960

Free form