Panufnik, Andrzej (EN)

Panufnik Sir Andrzej, *24 September 1914 Warsaw, †27 October 1991 Twickenham (London), Polish composer and conductor, Tomasz’s son.  He grew up in an atmosphere of music. His mother was a violinist and his father was a luthier. In 1922, he began learning piano under the guidance of his grandmother, Henryka Thonnes. In 1932–36, he studied at the conservatory in Warsaw with P. Rytel (harmony and counterpoint), W. Maliszewski (analysis of musical forms), E. Morawski (instrumentation), J. Lefeld (score reading), K. Sikorski (composition) and V. Berdyaev (conducting). In 1936, he received a diploma with honours in conducting and composition, in 1937–38, he completed his conducting studies in Vienna with F. Weingartner, and then in 1938–39 in Paris with Ph. Gaubert. During the war, he stayed in Warsaw. Due to the occupier’s restrictions, one of the few opportunities to legally perform music was for artists to perform in cafes; at that time, Andrzej Panufnik played in a piano duet with W. Lutosławski in the “Sztuka i Moda” and “U Gwiazdek” cafes, performing arrangements of works by Bach, Chopin, Ravel, Gershwin and others. During this time, he composed orchestral pieces, including Symphony No. 2 and Tragic Overture, which were performed at charity concerts of the Central Welfare Council. Works from these years and earlier were destroyed during the war; some were later recreated by the composer. In 1945–46, Andrzej Panufnik was a conductor at the Krakow Philharmonic and music director of the Polish Army Film Studio in Łódź, and in 1946–47 director of the Warsaw Philharmonic. In 1947–48, he conducted in Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Paris, Brighton, Zurich, Bordeaux, Marseille and at contemporary music festivals in London, Copenhagen and Scheveningen (Netherlands). In 1950, he travelled to the USSR with a group of Polish artists as a representative of the Polish Communist Party, and in 1953, he led the Polish cultural delegation during its artistic tour to China. In 1948–54, he was vice-president of the Polish Composers’ Union, and in 1950 he became vice-president of the International Conseil de Musique UNESCO in Paris. In 1950, he settled in Warsaw, and in 1951, he married Marie Elizabeth O’Mahoney (using the name Scarlett), whom he divorced in 1957. In 1954, Andrzej Panufnik left Poland, via Switzerland to England, intending to settle abroad. Due to his illegal departure from Poland, the authorities at that time issued a ban on performing and publishing the works of Andrzej Panufnik, as well as writing about the composer and his work.

According to his autobiography, the reason for emigration was the cultural policy of the socialist Polish state, which did not favour ambitious and innovative musical creativity, but the so-called music for the masses. The beginnings of Andrzej Panufnik’s stay abroad were not easy, he could not concentrate on his creative work. He worked mainly as a conductor. In 1954–55, he occasionally conducted orchestras in London and Brussels. It was only in 1956 that he composed his first piece in exile, Rhapsody. In 1957/58 and 1958/59, he was music director and conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In the 1959/60 season, he guest conducted three concerts in Buenos Aires. Since the 1960s, he devoted himself to creative work and conducted only exceptionally. In 1960, he received a scholarship from the Kościuszko Foundation to write a symphony commemorating the 1000^th anniversary of the Polish state; he titled this piece Sinfonia sacra. In 1961, he received British citizenship. In 1963, he married Camilla Jessel, in 1968 their daughter Roxanna (later a composer) was born, and in 1969 their son Jeremy (later a composer and painter). In 1977, on the initiative of the Polish Composers’ Union, the ban on performing Andrzej Panufnik’s works in Poland was lifted, but his music struggled to find its way into concert halls. This happened mainly on the occasion of contemporary music festivals; Andrzej Panufnik was fully restored to Polish culture only in the Third Polish Republic. A few things contributed to this, namely the Polish edition of the composer’s autobiography, T. Kaczyński’s popular monograph, and the arrival of Andrzej Panufnik to Poland in 1990. At the Warsaw Autumn Festival, 11 works by Andrzej Panufnik were performed, some of them under his direction. The annual Andrzej Panufnik Music Days held in Krakow since 1999 and the Andrzej Panufnik Composition Competition (international since 2001)also contributed to the popularisation of the composer’s work and person in his homeland. Andrzej Panufnik’s works have been performed in Europe and America by outstanding conductors, including L. Stokowski and S. Ozawa. In 1985–90, he was a member of the jury of the Prince Rainier Composition Competition in Monaco. In 1991, Queen Elizabeth II of England knighted him Sir.

Andrzej Panufnik received numerous awards and distinctions: in 1947, 1^st prize at the K. Szymanowski Composition Competition for Nocturne; in 1951 and 1952 state awards of the 2^nd degree (for the Symphony of Peace and the Gothic Concerto); in 1952, 1^st prize at the pre-Olympic composition competition on the occasion of the Olympic Games in Helsinki for Heroic Overture; in 1963 Prix de Composition Prince Pierre de Monaco for Sinfonia sacra; in 1965 the Sibelius Centenary Medal for Composition in London; in 1983 Prix de Composition Prince Rainier III de Monaco for lifetime achievement; in 1990, the award of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland for services to Polish culture; in 1991, he received an honorary doctorate from the Academy of Music in Warsaw. From 1984, he was an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London, and from 1987 of ZKP. In 1949, he was awarded the Order of the Banner of Labor, 1^st class, and in 1991, he was posthumously awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta. Andrzej Panufnik’s works composed before 1954 were published by PWM in Kraków, and later and new versions of works from before 1954 by Boosey & Hawkes in London; the manuscripts are in the British Library.

Andrzej Panufnik – an outstanding symphonist of the 20^th century – created works characterised by an extraordinary logic of construction, and at the same time attracting the listener’s attention with reflective or dramatic expression. The architecture of his pieces, the arrangement of instruments, rhythmic models and the organisation of pitches are subordinated to principles that often have non-musical sources. The composer gave a special role to geometric figures, whose shapes can be discovered based on the analysis of scores and thanks to the composer’s published statements. Although it is not possible to recognise all the complex compositional procedures in an auditory listening session, the effect of sound clarity and the impression of sonic order are perceptible. The perception of these works, containing precisely constructed sound systems, is facilitated by characteristic motifs, themes, instrumental “tricks” and a clear plan of the entire work. The crystallization of Andrzej Panufnik’s original style took place in the late 1960s, but many characteristic features already appeared in his early work. Among the works written in the 1940s, the following were particularly important for the development of Andrzej Panufnik’s compositional technique: Tragic Overture, Circle of Fifths and Sinfonia rustica. The four-note cell appearing in the Overture as the material basis of the piece is an announcement of the technique of the 1960s. In the Circle of Fifths, Andrzej Panufnik used a type of tale, i.e. a repeated rhythmic model, and symmetrical sound arrangements. In Sinfonia rustica, he also used his favourite principle of symmetry, which also applied to the positioning of the instruments on the stage. Traditional construction principles are also visible in Sinfonia, as the outermost movements use the sonata-allegro model, rondos in part 2, and variations in part 3. In many works, the composer introduced original folk melodies, in Sinfonia these are Kurpie melodies, in Lullaby – melodies from Krakow, in Hommage à Chopin from Masovia, and in Five Polish Peasant Songs from various regions of the country.

In his first works written in exile, from 1956–68, the composer develops structural ideas already existing in his earlier works, e.g. the idea of symmetry in Rhapsody, Piano Concerto and Autumn Music. In the slow part of the Concerto, the symmetrical arrangement concerns the pitch and rhythm. In Autumn Music, the principle of symmetry is also extended to registers and instruments. In this piece, there are also certain rules for shaping rhythmic orders, anticipating the composer’s later technique, e.g. regularly increasing the number of the same rhythmic values and separating them with longer and longer pauses (1 eighth note, eighth note rest, 2 eighth notes, quarter note rest, 3 eighth notes, rest eighth and quarter notes, 4 eighth notes). Autumn Music is one of those works in which Andrzej Panufnik achieved the perfect combination of the intellectual and emotional factors, because this work, with an intricate and precise structure (for example, it also contains canonical sections), has a huge dramatic charge thanks to the appropriate distribution of tensions created by changes in texture, instrumentation and dynamics.

Since 1968, there were significant changes in Andrzej Panufnik’s compositional technique in the organisation of pitches and rhythmic values, as well as in pre-compositional plans of form. In addition to the symmetrical arrangements known from his earlier work, sound structures began to appear based on such geometric forms as a circle (Sinfonia di sphere), a spiral (Metasinfonia) and a triangle (Triangles). The most evident in the auditory reception are the changes in compositional technique regarding the organisation of pitches. The composer began to use the F-B-E sound cell in his works as the basis for linear and vertical arrangements. This cell in the form of inversions, transpositions and permutations is the exclusive material of Reflections, Triangles and Universal Prayer. Its use significantly influenced the harmony and melody of Andrzej Panufnik’s music. In the harmony of works from before 1968, the major and minor triads played an important role, often appearing simultaneously (e.g. the melody with the third of a minor chord and the harmonic base with the third of a major chord, as in the slow movement of the Piano Concerto). The mentioned cell and its inversions create tritone-quart, quart-semitone and semitone-tritone triads. Its rigorous use also influenced the change in the shape of the melody and its meaning in the piece. In the texture of a piece, a motif or even a single sound, shown in various registers of instruments, has a form-creating significance. In Sinfonia concertante and Sinfonia mystica, the composer also introduced a 3-note cell composed of the interval of a minor third and a major second. A further development of this technique was the use of cells in the form of a diminished triad and an augmented triad (all 4 cells appear in the String Quartet No. 1).

In the 1980s, there were further changes involving the use of a 4-note cell, combining cells with elements of the major-minor tonal system (Concertino) and other scales (e.g. the pentatonic scale in the Pentasonata). The most important role in Andrzej Panufnik’s music is played by the most frequently used tritone-quart cell and its transformations. The strictly observed musical logic of works composed after 1968 consists not only of the manipulation of sound cells but also of several principles of organising rhythm. The composer developed an idea that had already appeared in the Circle of Fifths, which consisted in filling a piece or part of it with a rhythmic model subject to the principle of repetition. Such models are repeated in an identical and mirror form, subject to rotational changes, etc. permutations. Additive rhythms are also characteristic of many of Andrzej Panufnik’s works, consisting of the gradual addition of several pauses or notes of the same value. In Andrzej Panufnik’s compositions, there are clear connections between the rhythmic and sound order, as well as the instrumental, articulatory and dynamic order, so these works can be described as systemic arrangements. Instrumentation and articulation often emphasise sound and rhythmic structures. Andrzej Panufnik’s instrumentation mastery lies in the clear arrangement of the colours of the instruments, each of which has a precisely defined function in creating the drama or reflective character of a given part of the work.

Andrzej Panufnik developed an original musical style, independent of contemporary trends and techniques in 20^th-century music – sonorism, aleatorism and dodecaphony. The composer was close to the classical-romantic tradition because he entrusted the important role of melody, harmony and clear structure in his works.

Literature: Andrzej Panufnik Impulse and Design in my Music, London 1974 (comments to his own compositions); Andrzej Panufnik Composing Myself, London 1987, Polish ed. Panufnik o sobie, translated by M. Glińska, Warsaw 1990; C. MacDonald Andrzej Panufnik, London 1994 (Boosey & Hawkes catalogue); K. Jaraczewska-Mockałło Andrzej Panufnik. Katalog dzieł i bibliografia, Warsaw 1997; K. Stasiak An Analytical Study of the Music of Andrzej Panufnik, doctoral dissertation, Queen University in Belfast, 1990; T. Kaczyński Andrzej Panufnik i jego muzyka, Warsaw 1994; B. Jacobson Andrzej Panufnik and Panufnik and Lutosławski, in: A Polish Renaissance, London 1996; B. Bolesławska Panufnik, Kraków 2001; Z. Mycielski I Symfonia Panufnika and Pięć pieśni ludowych, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1945 No. 6 and 1946 No. 17/18; A. Moskalukówna „Kołysanka” Andrzeja Panufnika. Próba analizy kolorystycznej, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1949 No. 13; H. Truscott Andrzej Panufnik, “Tempo” No. 55–56, 1960; B. Hall Andrzej Panufnik and his „Sinfonia sacra”, “Tempo” No. 71, 1964/65; P. French The Music of Andrzej Panufnik, “Tempo” No. 84, 1968; S. Walsh The Music of Andrzej Panufnik, “Tempo” No. 111, 1974; O. Knussen Panufnik’s „Sinfonia di sfere”, “Tempo” No. 117, 1976; N. Kenyon Panufnik’s „Sinfonia Mistica”, “Tempo” No. 124, 1978; C. MacDonald O muzyce Andrzeja Panufnika, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1983 No. 20; Z. Broncell Jubileusz Andrzeja Panufnika, “Kultura” Paris 1984 No. 12; T.A. Zieliński „Sinfonia di sfere” Andrzeja Panufnika, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1984 No. 20; T. Kaczyński Obecność Panufnika, in: Przemiany techniki dźwiękowej, stylu i estetyki w polskiej muzyce lat 70., materials from the 17^th Polish Musicological Conference, Kraków 8–10 December 1983, ed. L. Polony, «Zeszyty Naukowe Akademii Muzycznej w Krakowie», Kraków 1986; B. Smoleńska-Zielińska „Koncert skrzypcowy” Andrzeja Panufnika, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1986 No. 7; C. MacDonald Panufnik 9 and „Bassoon Concerto”, “Tempo” No. 161/162, 1987; H. Truscott The Achievement of Andrzej Panufnik, “Tempo” No. 163, 1987; D. Gwizdalanka Andrzej Panufnik życiorys własny, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1988 No. 12–16; H. Truscott The Symphonies of Andrzej Panufnik, “The Musical Times” CXXX, 1989; M. Homma Composing Myself – Composing my Style. O „Arbor Cosmica” Andrzeja Panufnika and A. Tuchowski „Sinfonia Sacra” Andrzeja Panufnika a wartość muzyki, in: Muzyka źle obecna, ed. K. Tarnawska-Kaczorowska, Warsaw 1989; A. Chłopecki Aus der Geschichte der schlecht anwesenden Musik. Andrzej Panufnik’s Rückkehr nach Polen, “MusikTexte” No. 37, 1990; M. Gąsiorowska Panufnik. Struktura i emocja, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1990 No. 21; T. Kaczyński Return of the Non-Prodigal Son, “Polish Music/Polnische Musik” 1990 No. 1/2; K. Tarnawska-Kaczorowska Andrzej Panufnik i fletnia Marsjasza, “Kultura Niezależna” No. 65, 1990; T. Potter All my Children. A Portrait of Sir Andrzej Panufnik, “The Musical Times” CXXXII, 1991; M. Miller Panufnik’s String Quartet No. 3, „Tempo” No. 177, 1991; M. Głowiński Pochwała bohaterskiego oportunizmu. Epizod socrealistyczny w biografii Andrzeja Panufnika, in: Rytuał i demagogia. Trzynaście szkiców o sztuce zdegradowanej, Warsaw 1992; T. Kaczyński Panufnik nadal nieobecny, in: Mistrzowie muzyki późnego renesansu. Dokonania i tradycje, materiały z konferencji sekcji muzykologów ZKP, Toruń 1994; E. Siemdaj „Pomiędzy uczuciem a intelektem”. Geneza autorefleksji muzycznej Andrzeja Panufnika, in: Muzyka polska 1945-1995, ed. K. Droba, T. Malecka and K. Szwajgier, Kraków 1996; E. Siemdaj Dzieło jako biografia: Andrzej Panufnik „Sinfonia votiva” and K. Szymańska-Stułka „Sinfonia sacra” Andrzeja Panufnika i jej konstrukcyjno-ideowy wymiar, in: Muzyka w kontekście kultury, M. Tomaszewski’s festschrieft, ed. M. Janicka-Słysz, T. Malecka and K. Szwajgier, Kraków 2001.