ANDRZEJ PANUFNIK: WORKS
All scores available are published by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers
Works for soloist(s) and orchestra
SINFONIA RUSTICA (Symphony No. 1) (1948, rev. 1955)
Scoring: 1.2.0.2 - 2.1.0.0. - strings (14.12.10.8.6)
Length: 24 minutes
First performance: 1949, Krakow, conducted by the composer
...'... there is an immediate personal flavour. In the Sinfonia Rustica, this is particularly strong. The music is plainly derivative: Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Janacek, Mahler... Yet every quotation... is sifted through a personality so distinctive as to make it sound quite new and strange. Panufnik's own contribution can br broken down into three basic elements: his passion for harmonic and false relations... his highly creative use of cross-rhythms and ostinatos, and his peculiar sense of instrumental colour.... Its rusticity seemed distinctly quaint, like a landscaoe peopled by Gogol grotesques, and like Gogol it created its own world, believable, if slightly weird.'
- Stephen Walsh, 20 April 1972
Programme note
CD available: Monte Carlo Orchestra conducted by the composer, Unicorn-Kanchana UKCD2016
Study score available
SINFONIA ELEGIACA (Symphony No. 2) (1957, rev. 1966)
Scoring: 3 (III=picc).2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - timp.perc(3):glsp;SD/TD;BD/cyms/tant-t - harp - strings
Length: 22 minutes
First performance: 21 November 1957, Houston, Texas -Houston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
‘QUOTE’
Programme note
CD available:
Full score & study score available
SINFONIA SACRA (Symphony No. 3) (1963)
Scoring: 3(III=picc).2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4 (6).4.3.1 - timp.perc(3):SD/TD/BD/tam-t/large cyms/small susp.cym/large and small tgl - strings
Length: 22 minutes
First performance: 12 August 1964, Monte Carlo - Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra conducted by Louis Frémaux
‘…a most powerful composition, something extremely original… I regard this as one of the greatest compositions of Polish art, with Szymanowski, Chopin and all the other great Polish composers’
– Leopold Stokowski
‘The new 23-minute long work, divided into three ‘visions’ and an ‘Exordium’ to the Virgin, disclaims literary allusion yet palpably echoes the turmoil of the composer’s painful wartime and later experiences. Resoundingly and unashamedly polyphonic, it opens with a two and a half minute long four-part clarion call for trumpets and mounts by means of ever-growing strophic and antistrophic progressions to an impressive if over-loud climactic paen… Howlingly plaintive, fervently choric, screechingly warlike and caressingly threnodic by turns, and yet always richly harmonic, it is an original and imposing personal statement with unmistakeably religious, national and even erotic musical roots…’
– Sunday Times
Programme noteCDs available:
Study score available
SINFONIA CONCERTANTE (Symphony No. 4) (1973)
Scoring: solo flute, solo harp and strings (3.3.2.2.1)
Length: 23 minutes
First performance: 20 May 1974, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London - Paul de Winter (flute), David Watkins (harp), Les Solistes de l'Orchestre de Chambre de Belgique, conducted by the composer
‘QUOTE’
Programme note
CD available:
Full score and flute and harp parts available
SINFONIA DI SFERE (Symphony No. 5) (1974-75)
Scoring: 2.picc.2.2.bcl.2.dbn - 1.1.1.1 - perc(3); 12 untuned membrane drums of 4 different sizes - pft - strings
Length: 33 minutes
First performance: 13 April 1976, Royal Festival Hall, London - London Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Atherton
‘Although the music is tightly organised around small germ-cells which rotate and spawn mutations in amazing profusion, it offers a variety of colour and texture and a strong emotional charge that are far from scholastic… The general effect is that of a concerto for orchestra with distinct sections cast in a continually evolving variation form. Many of the sections – for example, a burst of chattering woodwind or a sustained cello line beneath pianissimo dappled keyboard chords – are of great delicacy and beauty and the tumultuous crescendo of the final episode rises to a thrilling conclusion.’
– Desmond Shawe-Taylor, The Sunday Times, 18 April 1974
Programme noteCD available:
Full score available
SINFONIA MISTICA (Symphony No. 6) (1977)
Scoring: 2.2.2.2 - 2.0.0.0 - strings (6.6.3.3.2 min, 12.12.9.6.4 max)
Length: 22 minutes
First performance: 17 January 1978 Middlesbrough - Northern Sinfonia conducted by Christopher Seaman
‘The work is a musical essay in the arithmetic of six. There are six sections alternating slow and fast in this continuous 21-minute piece, and always there are chords, rhythms and melodic fragments working through the basic calculations of two times three and three times two. It is music more truly mathematical than anything by Webern, art as precisely, repetitively figured as a Persian tiled wall. The piece holds that same fascination… It is difficult to hold back from pure delight as the composer reflects his patterns from one orchestra group to another, or as he paces his material through different six-part metres…’
– Paul Griffiths, The Times, 21 January 1978
Programme note
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METASINFONIA (Symphony No. 7) (1978)
Scoring: Solo organ, timpani and strings
Length: 25 minutes
First performance: 9 September 1978, Town Hall, Manchester - Geraint Jones (organ), BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘It is a skilfully wrought single-movement construction sustained by one basic theme. That same theme determines the deliberate pace which prevails as far as the more animated middle section and a hectic organ cadenza, and which is reaffirmed as a massive and convincingly conclusive late climax.’
– Gerald Larner, The Guardian, 11 September 1978
Programme note
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SINFONIA VOTIVA (Symphony No. 8) (1981, rev. 1984)
Scoring: 2.picc.2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - Perc(5):glsp;vib;t.bells;3tg/3susp.cym;3tam-t - 2 harps (or 1) - strings (14.12.10.8.6 min)
Length: 25 minutes
First performance: 28 January 1982, Boston - Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa
Programme note
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SYMPHONY NO. 9 (Sinfonia della Speranza) (1986, rev. 1987)
Scoring: 3.2.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - timp - strings
Length: 38 minutes
First performance: 25 February 1987, Royal Festival Hall, London - BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer
Programme note
CD available
SYMPHONY NO. 10 (1988, rev. 1990)
Scoring: 3.2.3(III=bcl).2.dbn - 6.3.3.1 - perc(2):SD/TD/BD/cyms/gong/tam-t - pft (with amplification if possible) - harp - strings
Length: 17 minutes
First performance: 1 February 1990, Orchestra Hall, Chicago - Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘No more auspicious means to honor a great symphony orchestra – also for that matter a great composer – could have been imagined… One has no hesitation in pronouncing Symphony No. 10 his most important work to date.’
– Chicaco Tribune, 2 February 1990
Programme note
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ARBOR COSMICA (1983)
Scoring: 6vln.3vla.2vlc.db, or string orchestra
Length: 40 minutes - Various suites from the 12 movements may be played, alternating slow and fast
First performance: 14 November 1984, Merkin Hall, New York - Music Today Ensemble conducted by Gerald Schwarz
‘QUOTE’
Programme note
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AUTUMN MUSIC (1962, rev. 1965)
Scoring: 3.0.3.0 - 0.0.0.0 - perc(2):tgl.picc/SD/TD/BD;glsp - cel - pft - harp - strings (0.0.6.6.4 or 0.0.3.3.2)
Length: 17 minutes
First performance: 16 January 1968, Paris - L'Orchestre Philharmonique de l'ORTF conducted by Serge Fournier
‘Its individual and beautifully realised sonorities tellingly evoke a desolate landscape. But these are more than mood pictures, for in this precise and poised score simple ideas are ingeniously extended and developed.’
– Peter Heyworth, The Observer (date???)
Programme noteCD available:
Full score & study score available
CONCERTO FESTIVO (1979)
Scoring: 3(III=picc).2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - timp.perc(2):4 unpitched membrane drums of different sizes/t.bells;glsp/xyl - strings (14.12.10.8.6 min)
Length: 15 minutes
First performance: 17 June 1979, Royal Festival Hall, London - London Symphony Orchestra with no conductor
‘…the Concerto Festivo… deceptively began with two movements in which it was perfectly possible to see how players could direct themselves – rapidly alternating selections for brass in the opening movement and sweet, poised lyricism from strings and woodwind in the slow movement. But what burst out then in the finale took one’s breath away, a brilliant giocoso movement marked prestissimo which was full of complex cross-rhythms and sharp, brisk antiphonies…’
– Edward Greenfield, The Guardian, 18 June 1979
Programme note
CD available:
Full score available
HARMONY (1989)
'A poem for Chamber Orchestra'
Scoring: 2.2.2.2 - 0.0.0.0 - strings (8.6.4.4.0) strings maximum 12.10.8.6.0, minimum 6.5.4.3.0
Length: 17 minutes
First performance: 15 December 1989, 92nd Street Y, New York - New York Chamber Symphony conducted by the composer
Programme note
CD available:
Full score available
HEROIC OVERTURE (1952, rev. 1969)
Scoring: 2.picc.2.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4(6).3.3.1 - perc(4):glsp;SD;TD;BD/tam-t/cyms - strings
Length: 6 minutes
First performance: 27 July 1952 Olympic Games - Helsinki Finnish Radio Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘QUOTE’
Programme note
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Full score & study score available
KATYN EPITAPH (1967, rev. 1969)
Scoring: 3(III=picc).2(II=corA).2.2.dbn - 0.0.0.1 - timp - strings (min 4db)
Length: 7 minutes
First performance: 17 November 1968, Carnegie Hall, New York - American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
'...to look back from the sombre final page, a threnody over implacable ostinato drums, to the bare wisp of violin melody from which the entire work sprang, is to recognise a formidable mastery of structure and rhetoric indivisible.'
- Gramophone, September 1982
Programme note
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LANDSCAPE (1962, rev. 1965)
Scoring: string orchestra
Length: 7 minutes
First performance: 13 November 1965, Twickenham Parish Church, English Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘This is a landscape in spacious but not desolate country, seen in slowly-changing light. An austere five-note theme, played throughout in the the original and an inverted version, gives the short work its unity of form, as concise as that of a song by Schubert. The changes of light and of mood are realised by fantastically skilful harmonic manipulation.'
- RV Ward, The Times, 20 November 1965’
Programme note
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LULLABY (1947, rev. 1955)
Scoring: 2 harps (or 1) - strings (6.6.6.6.5)
Length: 8 minutes
First performance: 1948 Krakow, Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘...his is...a unique voice, attaining a directness of utterance that is rare in contemporary music’
- Classic CD, July 1990
Programme note
CD available:
Study score available
NOCTURNE (1947, rev. 1955)
Scoring: 3(III=picc).2.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - timp.perc(4):SD/TD;cyms/tgl.picc;BD;tam-t - pft-strings
Length: 15 minutes
First performance: 1948 Paris, L'Orchestre Radio-Symphonique conducted by the composer
‘The material is simple, the method a slow accumulation of massive tension which is then just as gradually released – in dynamic terms, a long orchestral messa de voce. The music is of a mysterious and subtle poetry, utterly original and deeply compelling. It displayed to admiration the clean and glowing tone of the orchestra’s strings and the spendour of its brass department.’
– The Times, 5 October 1954
Programme note
CD available:
Full score & study score available
POLONIA (1959)
Scoring: 2(II=picc).2.2.2 - 4.2.3.0 - perc(2); BD/SD/TD - strings
Length: 20 minutes
First performance: 21 August 1959, Royal Albert Hall, London - BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘The more I hear of this composer's music, the more convinced I am that he is one of the best writing today...’
- John Percival, The Times, 10 December 1980
Programme note
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A PROCESSION FOR PEACE (1982-83)
Scoring: 3(III=picc).2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4(6).3.3.1 - timp.perc(2 or 4):SD/TD(3SD/3TD);BD - strings
Length: 7 minutes
First performance: 16 July 1983, Kenwood Lakeside, London - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘QUOTE’
Programme note
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RHAPSODY (1956)
Scoring: 2.picc.2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.2.1.1 - timp.perc(1):tgl.picc/SD/BD - pft - strings
Length: 17 minutes
First performance: 11 January 1957, BBC broadcast, London - BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘QUOTE’
Programme note
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Study score available
TRAGIC OVERTURE (1942, reconstructed 1945, rev. 1955)
Scoring: 3(III=picc).0.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - perc(3):tam-t/cyms/SD/BD - strings
Length: 7 minutes
First performance: 1943, Warsaw - Members of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the composer
‘QUOTE’
Programme note
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Study score available
WORKS FOR SOLOIST(S) AND ORCHESTRA
BASSOON CONCERTO for bassoon and small orchestra (1985)
Scoring: fl.2cl - strings
Length: 24 minutes
First performance: 18 May 1986, Milwaukee, USA - Robert Thompson (bassoon), Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer
Programme note
CD available:
Full score and reductiion for bassoon and piano available
CELLO CONCERTO (1991)
Scoring: 2fl.2cl - perc(1):SD/TD/BD - strings (maximum: 12.10.8.6.4, minimum: 8.6.4.3.1)
Length: 18 minutes
First performance: 24 June 1992, Barbican Hall, London - Mstislav Rostropovich (cello), London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolff
‘QUOTE’
Hear the Cello Concerto
CD available:
Study score and reduction for cello and piano available
CONCERTINO for timpani, percussion and strings (1979-80)
Scoring: solo perc(2): timp/glsp/xyl/vib/t.bells/3tgl/3susp.cym/large and small conga dr (or SDand small SD)/large and v. large tom-t (or TD and small BD) - strings
Length: 15 minutes
First performance: 24 January 1981 - Nigel Thomas and Geoffrey Prentice (soloists), London Symphony Orchestra conducted by André Previn
Programme note
CD available:
Full score and reduction for timpani, percussion and piano (4 hands) available
HOMMAGE A CHOPIN (orchestraed 1966)
Scoring: solo flute, small string orchestra
Length: 15 minutes
First performance: 24 September 1966 Notre Dame de France, London - Douglas Whittaker (flute), English Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘QUOTE’
Programme note
CD available:
METASINFONIA for solo organ, timpani and strings
(See Symphonies)
PIANO CONCERTO (1962, rev. 1970, 1972, 'Intrada' 1982)
Scoring: 3(III=picc).2.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - perc(2): small SD/TD/BD; small tgl/small cym/tam-t/xyl - strings
Length: 23 minutes
First performance: 25 January 1962, Town Hall, Birmingham - Kendall Taylor (piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘The crystalline clarity and concentrated emotion of the Piano Concerto… reveal just how unswerving a vision Panufnik possessed… Listening to Ewa Poblocka’s marvellous performance left me wondering why the concerto has never really been taken into the repertoire and performed more often as it contains all that a pianist could wish for – virtuosity, poetry, a wealth of memorable material and is a sure-fire winner with any audience.’
– Michael Stewart, Gramophone, May 1992
Programme note
CD available:
Reduction for two pianos available
SINFONIA CONCERTANTE for solo flute, solo harp and strings (1973)
(See Symphonies)
VIOLIN CONCERTO for violin and strings (1971)
Scoring: strings (preferably 8.6.4.4.2)
Length: 26 minutes
First performance: 18 July 1972, Guildhall, City of London Festival - Yehudi Menuhin (violin), Menuhin Festival Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘QUOTE’
Programme note
CD available:
Full score and solo violin part available
(Four works based on vocal and instrumental music by Polish composers of the 16th to 19th centuries)
Study score of all four works available from Boosey & Hawkes
CONCERTO IN MODO ANTICO (1951, rev. 1955)
Scoring: solo tpt - timp - 2 harps(II ad lib) - hpd (ad lib) - strings (16.0.12.8.6 max; 6.0.4.3.2 min)
Length: 15 minutes
First performance: 1951, Krakow - Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the composer
‘...the Concerto in Modo Antico showed [Panufnik's] understanding of what is orchestrally right in its beautifully simple scoring for trumpet..., strings, harp and timpani.’
Programme note
CD available:
DIVERTIMENTO (1947, rev. 1955)
Edited and adapted for string orchestra from the Six Trios pour deux violons et basse by Felix Janiewicz (1762-1848)
Length: 15 minutes
First performance: 1948 Kraków - Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer
Programme note
CD available:
JAGIELLONIAN TRIPTYCH (1966)
Scoring: string orchestra
Length: 7 minutes
First performance: 24 September 1966, Notre Dame de France, London - English Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer
Programme note
CD available:
OLD POLISH SUITE (1950, rev. 1955)
Scoring: string orchestra
Length: 12 minutes
First performance: 1951 Warsaw - Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘This is a straightforward reproduction, beautifully scored for strings, of five movements from Polish court music of the 17th and 18th centuries. There are two lively and earthily-flavoured peasant dances, a more courtly minuet-like dance and two sonorously-harmonized chorales...’
- R.V. Ward, The Times, 20 November 1965’
Programme note
CD available:
PIANO TRIO (1934, reconstructed 1945, rev. 1977)
Length: 20 minutes
First performance: 1935, Warsaw
‘QUOTE’
Programme note
CD available:
Score and parts available
QUINTETTO ACCADÈMICO (1953, rev. 1956)
Scoring: flute, oboe, 2 clarinets and bassoon
Length: 7 minutes
First performance:
Programme note
SONG TO THE VIRGIN MARY (1964)
arranged for string sextet (1987) (see also Vocal and choral works)
Length: 13 minutes
First performance: 21 February 1990, Purcell Room, London - Park Lane String Sextet
‘Panufnik has always made use of folk-music elements in his works. In this new one he seems to have found a new vein of inspiration in the wholehearted religious fervour of the ordinary people of a Roman Catholic country. But this is simply the aesthetic essence. There is nothing primitive about the sound of the work, which achieves its effect by the completely assured and logical use of a sophisticated harmonic language…’
- The Times, 2 May 1964
Programme note
STRING QUARTET NO. 1 (1976)
Length: 20 minutes
First performance: 19 October 1976, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London - Aeolian Quartet
Programme note
CD available:
Study score (with String Quartet No. 2) available
STRING QUARTET NO. 2 ‘MESSAGES' (1980)
Length: 20 minutes
First performance: 25 September 1980, St Asaph's Cathedral, North Wales Music Festival - Gabrieli Quartet
‘Panufnik's chamber music, stripped of the orchestral colour which he could handle so strikingly, distills and hones his art with haunting clarity’
- Geoffrey Norris, The Daily Telegraph, 23 October 1993
Programme note
CD available:
Study score (with String Quartet No. 1) available
STRING QUARTET NO. 3 ‘WYCINANKI’ (1990)
Length: 11 minutes
First performance: 15 April 1991, Barbican Hall, London - Wihan Quartet
Programme note
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STRING SEXTET ‘TRAINS OF THOUGHT’ (1987)
Length: 12 minutes
First performance: 21 February 1988, Purcell Room, London - Park Lane String Sextet
‘... the effect is more like a dream one might have of the train floating off the tracks and careering up into the firmament; the rhythm remains gently insistent, the harmonic language subtle and suggestive’
- Gramophone, December 1993
Programme note
CD available:
TRIANGLES (1972)
Scoring: three flutes and three cellos
Length: 16 minutes
First performance: 14 April 1972, BBC2 TV
Programme note
CD available:
Manuscript score only available
PENTASONATA (1984)
Length: 11 minutes
First performance: 23 June 1989, Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh - Craig Sheppard
Programme note
CD available:
Piano score available
REFLECTIONS (1968)
Length: 12 minutes
First performance: 21 April 1972, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London - John Ogdon
Programme note
CD available:
Piano score available
TWELVE MINIATURE STUDIES (1947, rev. 1955/64)
Length: 20 minutes
First performance: 1948, Kraków
‘Written in 1947 but later revised, these twelve short pieces have a strikingly wide range of effect and have affinities with Webern’s little essays for full orchestra. They use the entire resources of the keyboard and in their adventurous exploration of dissonant intervals and key changes they continually surprise the ear. Their alternating turbulent and meditative character also gave the set an emotional as well as thematic unity.’
– Surrey Comet, 11 November 1967
Programme note
CD available:
Piano score available
DREAMSCAPE (1977)
for mezzo-soprano and piano (without text)
Length: 12 minutes
First performance: 12 December 1977, Purcell Room, London - Meriel and Peter Dickinson
Programme note
FIVE POLISH PEASANT SONGS (1940, reconstructed 1945, rev. 1959)
for soprano (or treble) voices, 2 flutes, 2 clarinets and bass clarinet
Text: in Polish and English (anon)
Length: 13 minutes
First performance: 1945 Kraków, conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski
‘...a beautiful early composition... as effective as anything similar in Britten's output...’
- Paul Driver, The Daily Telegraph, 15 July 1982
Programme note
Full score available
HOMMAGE À CHOPIN (1949, rev. 1955)
Five vocalises for soprano and piano (see also Works for soloist and orchestra)
Length: 15 minutes
First performance: 1949, Salle Gaveau, Paris - Irene Joachim and Paul Collard
Programme note
LOVE SONG (1976)
for mezzo and harp or piano (1976), or mezzo, harp or piano and strings (arr. 1991)
Text: Sir Philip Sydney (E)
Length: 5 minutes
First performance: (string version) 28 November 1991, Wellington Museum, London - Meriel Dickinson, London Musici conducted by Mark Stephenson
Programme note
PRAYER TO THE VIRGIN OF SKEMPE (1990)
song for solo voice or choir in unison with organ, piano or instrumental accompaniment
Text: Jerzy Pietrkiewicz (P)
Length: 2 minutes
First performance: 5 November 1991 (composer's funeral), St Mary's Church, Twickenham - students from the Royal Academy of Music
Programme note
SONG TO THE VIRGIN MARY (1964, rev. 1969)
for chorus a cappella or six solo voices (see also Chamber works for string sextet version)
Text: in Latin (anon)
Length: 13 minutes
First performance: 26 April 1964, Victoria and Albert Museum, London - Geraint Jones Singers, Geraint Jones
‘...a sincerely felt work that reveals considerable mastery in writing for voices. The simple pentatonic theme is sung at first, antiphonally, by single sopranos at the top of their range, giving an effect of impersonal spiritual purity. With the progressive addition of the other voices, the atmosphere becomes much more subjectively charged. There is a quiet middle section in which the rhythm of the words is gently insisted on. Then the opening theme is heard again, but in dissonant harmony which becomes more and more potent as the work grows to a climax of intense religious ecstasy.’
- The Times, 2 May 1964
Programme note
Choral score available
UNIVERSAL PRAYER (1968-69)
for soprano, contralto, tenor and bass soloists, chorus, 3 harps and organ
Text: Alexander Pope (E)
Length: 28 minutes
First performance: 24 May 1970, Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York, conducted by Leopold Stokowski
'The composer's sense of word-sound and meaning was impeccable. Beyond that he translated Pope's fervent text into the grandest, most awesome kind of music.'
- New York Times, 25 September 1970
Programme note
Full score available
WINTER SOLSTICE (1972)
For soprano and baritone soloists, mixed chorus, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani and glockenspiel
Text: Camilla Jessel
Length: 21 minutes
First performance: 16 December 1972, Kingston-upon-Thames Parish Church - Jean Knibbs, Bruce Pullan, Louis Halsey Singers, London Bach Orchestra conducted by Louis Halsey
Programme note
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INVOCATION FOR PEACE (1972)
for treble voices, 2 trumpets and 2 trombones (also arranged for unaccompanied mixed chorus or 5 solo voices)
Length: 8 minutes
Text: Camilla Jessel
First performance: 28 November 1972, Southampton - Southampton Youth Orchestra conducted by Peter Davies
Programme note
CD available:
THAMES PAGEANT (1969)
Cantata for young players and singers
Scoring: descant recorders (picc).treble recorders(fl) - 2tpt(ob or cl).2trbn (bn or bcl) - perc:chime bars/glsp(s)/gong(s)/xyl/cyms/tam-t/tgl(s)/BD/junior strings (vln.vlc) - 2 choirs of treble voices
Text: Camilla Jessel
Length: 32 minutes
First performance: 7 February 1970 Thames Valley Grammar School, Twickenham, conducted by Eric Griffiths
Programme note
Full score available from Boosey & Hawkes
TWO LYRIC PIECES (1963)
Scoring: I: 2cl.bcl(bn) - hn(tpt II).tpt.trbn; II: strings
Length: 8 minutes
First performance: 13 May 1963, Farnham, Surrey, conducted by Alan Fluck
Programme note
PAEAN (1980)
'For the 80th birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother'
Scoring: 6hn.6tpt.6trnb - organ (ad lib) - optional fanfare trumpets
Reduced version: 4hn.3tpt.3trbn.tuba - organ (ad lib)
Length: 3 minutes
First performance: 16 November 1980, Royal Concert, Royal Albert Hall, London - Players from the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall
Programme note
ELEGY (to Sinfonia Elegiaca)
Gerald Arpino, City Center Joffrey Ballet, New York 1967
‘This sombre score, with its grave and simple measures and broad emotional span, could have been written for the theater and makes an excellent partner to Mr Arpino’s ballet’
– Clive Barnes, ??The Times??, 13 September 1967
CAIN AND ABEL (to Sinfonia Sacra and Tragic Overture)
Kenneth MacMillan, Deutsche Oper Berlin, 1968
‘MacMillan’s use of Andrzej Panufnik’s Sinfonia Sacra and Tragic Overture is so apt that the music might have been specially composed; it affords a superb accompaniment and commentary to the tragedy’
-Clement Crisp, Financial Times, ??? 1968
MISS JULIE (reworking of Nocturne, Rhapsody, Autumn Music and Polonia and newly-composed music)
Kenneth MacMillan, Stuttgart Ballet, 1970
AUTUMN MUSIC
David Drew, BBC TV, London, 1974
THE ARCHAIC MOON (to Rhapsody)
Norman Walker, Houston Ballet, 1978
HOMAGE TO CHOPIN (to Hommage à Chopin and ‘Masurek’ from Polonia)
David Bintley, Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, London, 1980
ADIEU (to Violin Concerto)
David Bintley, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, 1980
DANCES OF THE GOLDEN HALL (to Nocturne)
Martha Graham, Martha Graham Dance Company, City Center New York, 1982
BOGURODZICA (to Sinfonia Sacra)
Gray Veredon, Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon, 1983
COMMON PRAYER (to Sinfonia Sacra)
Robert Cohan, Batsheva Dance Company of Israel, 1983
SINFONIA MISTICA
Paul Mejia, New York City Ballet, New York, 1987
SACRED SYMPHONY (to Sinfonia Sacra)
Christopher Hindle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, 1991
VINCENT VAN GOGH (to Sinfonia Sacra)
Raimondo Fornoni, Dutch National Ballet (television ballet)
STOP IT (to Violin Concerto)
Krzysztof Pastor, Dutch National Ballet, 1993
ANDRZEJ PANUFNIK: WORKS
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Works for soloist(s) and orchestra
SINFONIA RUSTICA (Symphony No. 1) (1948, rev. 1955)
Scoring: 1.2.0.2 - 2.1.0.0. - strings (14.12.10.8.6)
Length: 24 minutes
First performance: 1949, Krakow, conducted by the composer
...'... there is an immediate personal flavour. In the Sinfonia Rustica, this is particularly strong. The music is plainly derivative: Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Janacek, Mahler... Yet every quotation... is sifted through a personality so distinctive as to make it sound quite new and strange. Panufnik's own contribution can br broken down into three basic elements: his passion for harmonic and false relations... his highly creative use of cross-rhythms and ostinatos, and his peculiar sense of instrumental colour.... Its rusticity seemed distinctly quaint, like a landscaoe peopled by Gogol grotesques, and like Gogol it created its own world, believable, if slightly weird.'
- Stephen Walsh, 20 April 1972
Programme note
CD available: Monte Carlo Orchestra conducted by the composer, Unicorn-Kanchana UKCD2016
Study score available
SINFONIA ELEGIACA (Symphony No. 2) (1957, rev. 1966)
Scoring: 3 (III=picc).2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - timp.perc(3):glsp;SD/TD;BD/cyms/tant-t - harp - strings
Length: 22 minutes
First performance: 21 November 1957, Houston, Texas -Houston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Programme note
Full score & study score available
SINFONIA SACRA (Symphony No. 3) (1963)
Scoring: 3(III=picc).2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4 (6).4.3.1 - timp.perc(3):SD/TD/BD/tam-t/large cyms/small susp.cym/large and small tgl - strings
Length: 22 minutes
First performance: 12 August 1964, Monte Carlo - Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra conducted by Louis Frémaux
‘…a most powerful composition, something extremely original… I regard this as one of the greatest compositions of Polish art, with Szymanowski, Chopin and all the other great Polish composers’– Leopold Stokowski
‘The new 23-minute long work, divided into three ‘visions’ and an ‘Exordium’ to the Virgin, disclaims literary allusion yet palpably echoes the turmoil of the composer’s painful wartime and later experiences. Resoundingly and unashamedly polyphonic, it opens with a two and a half minute long four-part clarion call for trumpets and mounts by means of ever-growing strophic and antistrophic progressions to an impressive if over-loud climactic paen… Howlingly plaintive, fervently choric, screechingly warlike and caressingly threnodic by turns, and yet always richly harmonic, it is an original and imposing personal statement with unmistakeably religious, national and even erotic musical roots…’ – Sunday Times
Programme noteStudy score available
SINFONIA CONCERTANTE (Symphony No. 4) (1973)
Scoring: solo flute, solo harp and strings (3.3.2.2.1)
Length: 23 minutes
First performance: 20 May 1974, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London - Paul de Winter (flute), David Watkins (harp), Les Solistes de l'Orchestre de Chambre de Belgique, conducted by the composer
Programme note
Full score and flute and harp parts available
SINFONIA DI SFERE (Symphony No. 5) (1974-75)
Scoring: 2.picc.2.2.bcl.2.dbn - 1.1.1.1 - perc(3); 12 untuned membrane drums of 4 different sizes - pft - strings
Length: 33 minutes
First performance: 13 April 1976, Royal Festival Hall, London - London Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Atherton
‘Although the music is tightly organised around small germ-cells which rotate and spawn mutations in amazing profusion, it offers a variety of colour and texture and a strong emotional charge that are far from scholastic… The general effect is that of a concerto for orchestra with distinct sections cast in a continually evolving variation form. Many of the sections – for example, a burst of chattering woodwind or a sustained cello line beneath pianissimo dappled keyboard chords – are of great delicacy and beauty and the tumultuous crescendo of the final episode rises to a thrilling conclusion.’
– Desmond Shawe-Taylor, The Sunday Times, 18 April 1974
Programme noteFull score available
SINFONIA MISTICA (Symphony No. 6) (1977)
Scoring: 2.2.2.2 - 2.0.0.0 - strings (6.6.3.3.2 min, 12.12.9.6.4 max)
Length: 22 minutes
First performance: 17 January 1978 Middlesbrough - Northern Sinfonia conducted by Christopher Seaman
‘The work is a musical essay in the arithmetic of six. There are six sections alternating slow and fast in this continuous 21-minute piece, and always there are chords, rhythms and melodic fragments working through the basic calculations of two times three and three times two. It is music more truly mathematical than anything by Webern, art as precisely, repetitively figured as a Persian tiled wall. The piece holds that same fascination… It is difficult to hold back from pure delight as the composer reflects his patterns from one orchestra group to another, or as he paces his material through different six-part metres…’
– Paul Griffiths, The Times,
21 January 1978
Programme note
Full score available
METASINFONIA (Symphony No. 7) (1978)
Scoring: Solo organ, timpani and strings
Length: 25 minutes
First performance: 9 September 1978, Town Hall, Manchester - Geraint Jones (organ), BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘It is a skilfully wrought single-movement construction sustained by one basic theme. That same theme determines the deliberate pace which prevails as far as the more animated middle section and a hectic organ cadenza, and which is reaffirmed as a massive and convincingly conclusive late climax.’
– Gerald Larner, The Guardian,
11 September 1978
Programme note
Full score available
SINFONIA VOTIVA (Symphony No. 8) (1981, rev. 1984)
Scoring: 2.picc.2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - Perc(5):glsp;vib;t.bells;3tg/3susp.cym;3tam-t - 2 harps (or 1) - strings (14.12.10.8.6 min)
Length: 25 minutes
First performance: 28 January 1982, Boston - Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa
Programme note
Full score available
SYMPHONY NO. 9 (Sinfonia della Speranza) (1986, rev. 1987)
Scoring: 3.2.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - timp - strings
Length: 38 minutes
First performance: 25 February 1987, Royal Festival Hall, London - BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer
Programme note
SYMPHONY NO. 10 (1988, rev. 1990)
Scoring: 3.2.3(III=bcl).2.dbn - 6.3.3.1 - perc(2):SD/TD/BD/cyms/gong/tam-t - pft (with amplification if possible) - harp - strings
Length: 17 minutes
First performance: 1 February 1990, Orchestra Hall, Chicago - Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer
‘No more auspicious means to honor a great symphony orchestra – also for that matter a great composer – could have been imagined… One has no hesitation in pronouncing Symphony No. 10 his most important work to date.’
– Chicaco Tribune, 2 February 1990
Programme note
Full score available
ARBOR COSMICA (1983)
Scoring: 6vln.3vla.2vlc.db, or string orchestra
Length: 40 minutes - Various suites from the 12 movements may be played, alternating slow and fast
First performance: 14 November 1984, Merkin Hall, New York - Music Today Ensemble conducted by Gerald Schwarz
Programme note
Full score available
AUTUMN MUSIC (1962, rev. 1965)
Scoring: 3.0.3.0 - 0.0.0.0 - perc(2):tgl.picc/SD/TD/BD;glsp - cel - pft - harp - strings (0.0.6.6.4 or 0.0.3.3.2)
Length: 17 minutes
First performance: 16 January 1968, Paris - L'Orchestre Philharmonique de l'ORTF conducted by Serge Fournier
‘Its individual and beautifully realised sonorities tellingly evoke a desolate landscape. But these are more than mood pictures, for in this precise and poised score simple ideas are ingeniously extended and developed.’
– Peter Heyworth, The Observer
Programme noteFull score & study score available
CONCERTO FESTIVO (1979)
Scoring: 3(III=picc).2.corA.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4.3.3.1 - timp.perc(2):4 unpitched membrane drums of different sizes/t.bells;glsp/xyl - strings (14.12.10.8.6 min)
Length: 15 minutes
First performance: 17 June 1979, Royal Festival Hall, London - London Symphony Orchestra with no conductor
‘…the Concerto Festivo… deceptively began with two movements in which it was perfectly possible to see how players could direct themselves – rapidly alternating selections for brass in the opening movement and sweet, poised lyricism from strings and woodwind in the slow movement. But what burst out then in the finale took one’s breath away, a brilliant giocoso movement marked prestissimo which was full of complex cross-rhythms and sharp, brisk antiphonies…’
– Edward Greenfield, The Guardian,
18 June 1979
Programme note
Full score available
HARMONY (1989)
'A poem for Chamber Orchestra'
Scoring: 2.2.2.2 - 0.0.0.0 - strings (8.6.4.4.0) strings maximum 12.10.8.6.0, minimum 6.5.4.3.0
Length: 17 minutes
First performance: 15 December 1989, 92nd Street Y, New York - New York Chamber Symphony conducted by the composer
Programme note
Full score available
HEROIC OVERTURE (1952, rev. 1969)
Scoring: 2.picc.2.2.bcl.2.dbn - 4(6).3.3.1 - perc(4):glsp;SD;TD;BD/tam-t/cyms - strings
Length: 6 minutes
First performance: 27 July 1952 Olympic Games - Helsinki Finnish Radio Orchestra conducted by the composer
Programme note
Full score & study score available
KATYN EPITAPH (1967, rev. 1969)
Scoring: 3(III=picc).2(II=corA).2.2.dbn - 0.0.0.1 - timp - strings (min 4db)
Length: 7 minutes
First performance: 17 November 1968, Carnegie Hall, New York - American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
'...to look back from the sombre final page, a threnody over implacable ostinato drums, to the bare wisp of violin melody from which the entire work sprang, is to recognise a formidable mastery of structure and rhetoric indivisible.'