PENDERECKI, Krzysztof

An idiosyncratic Polish composer, Penderecki has appropriated a variety of avant-garde ideas in ways that may or may not be original. His String Quartet (1960) had old instruments resonating in new ways, while his genuinely moving Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960) displays fifty-two strings realizing smoothly modulated frequency bands, mostly at their highest possible pitches, superficially resembling Gyorgy Ligeti's stunning Atmospheres (1961) and Lux Aeterna (1966). As...