Music Quotes by Krzysztof Penderecki

I started to write religious music at a time when it was absolutely impossible. The first religious work I wrote was the…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I accept all of the music that I wrote.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I started with very tonal 19th-century music because I wanted to be a violinist as a child. So this was my first…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I was growing up in a communist time, especially, and the other music, the western music, was banned, so on radio half…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I always felt independent of musical fashion.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I grew up at the time of Social Realism in Poland, when everyone was supposed to be 'writing for the workers.' But…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

In my own works I am an obsessionist. Though I write humorous music too, much of it has been obsessed by death…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

For me, music is pure abstraction.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

Melody was banned from music by the composers of the avant-garde. I was unique among them in always using and writing melody…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

With Orff it is text, text, text - the music always subordinate. Not so with me. In 'Magnificat,' the text is important,…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

There was this kind of dictatorship of the Darmstadt school, composers like Boulez and Stockhausen, who were very strict and orthodox. They…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I started music late.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I don't write political music. Political music is immediately obsolete.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I began as a violinist, not a composer. Thus my contact with orchestral musicians, with the source of music, is very important.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

When Kubrick called me about 'The Shining,' it was very strange. He first asked me to write music for his film, but…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

Conducting is a natural way to participate in one's own music. Almost every 19th-century composer Mendelssohn, Mahler was conducting or playing his…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I started studying counterpoint and theory with a physicist whose hobby was music.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I have always had an audience for my music, even in the very avant garde, crazy times.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

The isolation of Eastern Europe actually helped me to be so original. I couldn't travel so much, I had to find my…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I wrote 'Threnody,' then I wrote several works where I changed my music completely.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

So many new things have been discovered in the 20th century that now, at the end of the century, we need some…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I think in work like 'Passion According to St Luke,' which I wrote when the Church was being persecuted by the Communist…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

There is something about performing my own music, and other people's music, that gives me pleasure. I think I learn more by…

— Krzysztof Penderecki

Listening to classical music is like reading philosophy books. Not everybody has to do it.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I think the best publicity I can get for my music is to conduct it.

— Krzysztof Penderecki