Poland is my home, my roots are here. There is nowhere I would rather live. — Krzysztof Penderecki Home Copy Share Image
I think the best publicity I can get for my music is to conduct it. — Krzysztof Penderecki Best Copy Share Image
Usually composers need a reason to write. I need a deadline. — Krzysztof Penderecki Composers Copy Share Image
I have found my perfect place on earth in Poland, in Luslawice, near Krakow. — Krzysztof Penderecki Earth Copy Share Image
Poles have a mistrust of the West and an even deeper mistrust of the East. — Krzysztof Penderecki East Copy Share Image
I studied violin since I was a boy, and my dream was to be a violinist and to play. — Krzysztof Penderecki Boy Copy Share Image
You can only learn orchestration if you have the possibility of using an orchestra. — Krzysztof Penderecki Education Copy Share Image
I have about 1,700 species of trees, almost everything that can grow in our climate. — Krzysztof Penderecki About Copy Share Image
Chopin is a great composer who influenced many, many important composers. He was a great innovator, especially in harmony. — Krzysztof Penderecki Chopin Copy Share Image
My grandfather taught me trees and the Latin names of trees when I was five or six. His father was a forester,… — Krzysztof Penderecki Father Copy Share Image
I must never change my way - because of critics who may not like it - I preserve my language and my… — Krzysztof Penderecki Change Copy Share Image
I take commissions because I know I'll have to get up early in the morning and work. — Krzysztof Penderecki Early Copy Share Image
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 Education Copy Share Image
I don't like to be alone. I like to have my family around me. They disturb me, of course, but that's OK. — Krzysztof Penderecki Alone Copy Share Image
There's a kind of passionate expression in all my pieces. It's just that the nature of the expression takes different forms. — Krzysztof Penderecki Artist Copy Share Image
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 Conducting Copy Share Image
I was growing up in a communist time, especially, and the other music, the western music, was banned, so on radio half… — Krzysztof Penderecki Chopin Copy Share Image
I grew up at the time of Social Realism in Poland, when everyone was supposed to be 'writing for the workers.' But… — Krzysztof Penderecki Change Copy Share Image
When writing music for the 'Kaddish,' I evoked the prayers that were sung in Eastern Galicia, Ukraine and Romania. I was advised… — Krzysztof Penderecki Friend Copy Share Image
I think in work like 'Passion According to St Luke,' which I wrote when the Church was being persecuted by the Communist… — Krzysztof Penderecki Church Copy Share Image
If I would be born in New Zealand, maybe, I would never write the Polish Requiem or pieces which were connected with… — Krzysztof Penderecki Born Copy Share Image
I started to write religious music at a time when it was absolutely impossible. The first religious work I wrote was the… — Krzysztof Penderecki Impossible Copy Share Image
There was this kind of dictatorship of the Darmstadt school, composers like Boulez and Stockhausen, who were very strict and orthodox. They… — Krzysztof Penderecki Dictatorship Copy Share Image
When the Second World War started, I was only five but I still remember... Being a witness... I wanted people to remember… — Krzysztof Penderecki Country Copy Share Image
I began as a violinist, not a composer. Thus my contact with orchestral musicians, with the source of music, is very important. — Krzysztof Penderecki Important Copy Share Image
After so many years, I don't really think writing has to be absolutely new. No. It has to be good work. — Krzysztof Penderecki Good Copy Share Image
It's no longer possible to find something which will shock other people, because everything has already been done. — Krzysztof Penderecki Everything Copy Share Image
I used to do most of my composing at a little table in a cafe. Composing for 52 instruments, I had to… — Krzysztof Penderecki Cafe Copy Share Image
I have always had an audience for my music, even in the very avant garde, crazy times. — Krzysztof Penderecki Always Copy Share Image
In my own works I am an obsessionist. Though I write humorous music too, much of it has been obsessed by death… — Krzysztof Penderecki Death Copy Share Image
At school, I wrote in the style of the Dutch composers. After I graduated, a new style set in. — Krzysztof Penderecki Composers Copy Share Image
For years, my favorite composers had been Monteverdi and Bach. Then I began to rediscover the 19th century, see it from another… — Krzysztof Penderecki 19th century Copy Share Image
Writing music is something very natural... this is the way to communicate with other people. — Krzysztof Penderecki Communicate Copy Share Image
The communists saw what we did in the arts as the only product of socialism that was known in the West, so… — Krzysztof Penderecki Art Copy Share Image
I'm not a minimalist, not at all. I feel much better, safer even, having a large piece. — Krzysztof Penderecki Better Copy Share Image
So many new things have been discovered in the 20th century that now, at the end of the century, we need some… — Krzysztof Penderecki 20th century Copy Share Image
My family was very open. My grandfather was German and a Protestant. My father, a lawyer, was Greek-Catholic and played the violin.… — Krzysztof Penderecki Church Copy Share Image
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 I think Copy Share Image
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 Eastern europe Copy Share Image
