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Andrzej Panufnik

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Sir Andrzej Panufnik (September 24, 1914 - October 27,1991) was a Polish composer, pianist, and conductor.

Contents

Biography

Childhood, and studies

Panufnik was born in Warsaw, the second son of a violinist mother and an amateur (but renowned) violin-maker father. From an early age he was torn between an interest in music and a fascination with the mechanics of aeroplanes. His grandmother arranged piano lessons for him, but although he showed talent his studies were erratic. As a schoolboy he composed some successful popular tunes, but his father did not approve his son's pursuing a musical career. Eventually his father relented, permitting the boy to study music provided he matriculated. Panufnik failed the piano entrance examination for the Warsaw Conservatoire, but succeeded in gaining admission as a percussion student. He soon left the percussion class to concentrate on studying composition and conducting; he worked hard and completed the course in much less time than expected.

After graduating with distinction in 1936, his plans to travel to Vienna to study conducting for a year under Felix Weingartner were delayed by his being called up for National Service. Panufnik recalled how, on the night before his medical, he heard the Polish chant Bogurodzica on the wireless. This entirely captivated him, and he sat up late into the night drinking copious quantities of black coffee. The result of this was that he failed his medical examination and was excused from military duties. Instead he used the year's hiatus earning money and reputation composing film music.

Panufnik travelled to Vienna in 1937 for his studies with Weingartner. He also fulfilled his intention of studying music by the composers of the Second Viennese School, but while he applauded Arnold Schoenberg's imposition of constraints in order to give artistic unity to a composition, dodecaphonic music did not appeal to him. Panufnik returned to Poland before the end of his planned year-long stay, leaving shortly after the Anschluss when the political situation caused Weingartner to be removed from the Academy.

Panufnik also lived for some months in Paris and London, where he studied privately and composed his first symphony. He met Weingartner again in London, and the older conductor urged him to stay in England to avoid the consequences of the worsening international situation. Panufnik was determined to return to Poland.

Panufnik's war

During the German occupation of Warsaw during World War II Panufnik formed a piano duo with his friend and fellow composer Witold Lutosławski, and they performed in cafés around Warsaw. This was the only way in which Poles could legitimately hear live music, as arranging concerts was impossible because the occupying forces had banned organised gatherings. Panufnik also composed some illegal Songs of Underground Resistance, which became popular among the Polish community. During this period he composed a Tragic Overture and a second symphony. Later, Panufnik was able to conduct charity concerts, at one of which his Tragic Overture was first performed. He fled from Warsaw with his ailing mother, leaving all his music behind in his apartment, just before the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. When Panufnik returned to the ruins of the city in the spring of 1945 to bury his brother's body and recover his own manuscripts, he discovered that despite having survived the widespread destruction, all of his scores had been discarded onto a bonfire by the new tenant of his rooms.

Socialist Realism

After World War II Panufnik moved to Kraków, where he found work composing film music for the Army Film Unit. Most of this was for propaganda films; Panufnik later recounted how for one film, The Electrification of the Villages, the director was unable to find a house without a supply of electricity, and had to demolish pylons and remove infrastructure in order to film it being built.

Panufnik accepted the post of Principal Conductor with the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra. He also reconstructed some of his music that had been lost, starting with the Tragic Overture which was still fresh in his mind. Encouraged by this he also reconstructed his Piano Trio and Polish Peasant Songs. However, his first symphony did not prove so easy and, disappointed with the result, Panufnik decided that he would thereafter concentrate on composing new works.

Appointed Music Director of the defunct Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, traditionally Poland's leading orchestra, Panufnik set about engaging musicians and finding premises. When beauraucratic obstacles made the reconstitution of the orchestra difficult (for example, the lack of available living accommodation for the musicians) he resigned in protest. At this time he also fulfilled conducting engagements abroad, including guest conductor with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. He was instructed to include his Tragic Overture as a reminder to Germany of their recent actions in Warsaw.

Around this time he started composing again, writing his Circle of Fifths for piano (published as Twelve Miniature Studies). His Nocturne for orchestra was inspired by the combination of the River Thames and the night sky while he was visiting London. In its use of quarter tones this broke new ground, both for Panufnik and for Polish music. Panufnik also composed a Sinfonia Rustica, deciding to give it a name rather than the designation "Symphony No. 1" out of feeling for his two lost works in the genre.

Panufnik became Vice-President of the newly constituted Union of Socialist Composers (ZKP—Związek Kompozytorów Polskich), accepting the post after being urged to do so by his colleagues. However, in this capacity he found himself manoeuvred into positions which he did not support, at conferences whose nature was political rather than musical. At one of these conferences he met Zoltán Kodály who privately expressed a similar feeling of artistic helplessness to Panufnik's. He also encountered composers such as the English Alan Bush, who were sympathetic to the aims of Stalinist Socialism, and other composers on the political far-left such as Benjamin Frankel.

Adding to Panufnik's discomfiture, in the postwar period the government became increasingly interventionist in the arts. As a consequence of events in the Soviet Union, particularly the Zhdanov decree in 1948, it was dictated that composers should follow Soviet Realism, and that musical compositions, like all works of art, should reflect "the realities of Socialist Life". Panufnik later mused on the nebulous nature of Soviet Realism, quoting a Polish joke of the time that it was "like a mosquito: everyone knew it had a prick, but no-one had seen it". In this climate Panufnik, who was not a member of the Communist Party, attempted to tread an acceptable path by composing works based on historical Polish music; to this end he wrote his Old Polish Suite.

First, his Nocturne was singled out for criticism. Later General Włodzimierz Sokorski, Culture Secretary, announced that Panufnik's Sinfonia Rustica had "ceased to exist": Panufnik later described the symphony as "a patently innocent work", and found it particularly galling that one of the panel that decided on the work's proscription had earlier been on the panel that had awarded it first prize in the Chopin Competition. While his compositions were banned at home as formalist, Panufnik was promoted abroad as a cultural export, both as composer and conductor. The authorities awarded him their highest accolade, Standard of Labour First Class.

In 1950, Panufnik visited Russia as part of a Polish delegation to study Soviet teaching methods. He met Dmitri Shostakovich, whom he had befriended at previous conferences, and Aram Khatchaturian. During conversations with lesser composers, Panufnik was pressed to say what he was working on. Feeling the need to say something acceptable, he casually mentioned that he had an idea for a Symphony of Peace. This was seized upon, and on returning to Poland he was granted a stay in quiet surroundings so that he could finish the piece (Panufnik interpreted this as an order to complete it). He wrote a three movement work, ending with a setting of words by his friend, the poet Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. Panufnik hoped to work his own conception of peace into the composition, rather than the official Soviet ideology. The piece was not a success.

While he was writing the Symphony of Peace, he was struck by the beauty of an Irish woman he met called Marie Elizabeth O'Mahoney, who was known as "Scarlett" because of her likeness (both physical and temperamental) to Scarlett O'Hara from Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind. Even though she was honeymooning with her third husband, she and Panufnik started an affair. Panufnik soon discovered she was epileptic, but in spite of his doubts the couple were married in 1951 and soon had a baby daughter Oonagh. Panufnik now had a young family to support, and so threw himself into his lucrative work for the Film Unit. For one film he again turned to old Polish music, and he eventually adapted this score for the concert work Concerto in modo antico.

In 1952 Panufnik composed a Heroic Overture, based on an idea he had conceived in 1939 inspired by the struggle of Poland against Nazi oppression. He submitted this work (without divulging its true meaning) for the 1952 pre-Olympic music competition in Helsinki, and it won. However, at home this overture was also branded "formalist".

In the spring of 1953, Panufnik led the Chamber Orchestra of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra on a tour of China, where he met prime-minister Zhou Enlai and, briefly, Chairman Mao. While he was on this tour, he heard that Oonagh had been drowned while Scarlett had an epileptic attack while she was bathing her. Some time after returning to Warsaw he was asked to write a letter that the government could send to western musicians, ostensibly from Panufnik, to sound them out for sympatheties with the Polish "Peace Movement". Panufnik described this as effectively an order to spy for Moscow, and as the last in a "succession of final straws". Thus in 1954 Panufnik's no longer felt ablt to reconcile his patriotic desire to remain a Polish composer in Poland with his contempt for the musical and political demands of the government. He decided to migrate to Britain in order to highlight the conditions in which Polish composers were being forced to work.

Scarlett, whose father lived in Britain, easily obtained permission to travel to London, and while she was there she covertly asked Polish emigré friends to help. Bernard Jacobson described the events of Panufnik's escape from Poland as being straight out of a le Carré novel. The plan involved his friends' contrivance of a conducting engagement in Switzerland as cover, Panufnik's anxiety not to appear too eager to accept the invitation when it arrived, the Polish Legation in Switzerland divining his impending escape—and their urgent attempts to recall him to the Polish Embassy—and Panufnik's alarming night-time taxi-ride through Zürich to shake off members of the Secret Police who were following him. He eventually boarded a flight for London, and was granted political asylum on arrival. His defection made international headlines. The Polish government branded him a traitor, immediately suppressing his music and any record of his conducting achievements. Before he left Poland, Panufnik was recognised by both the authorities and his colleagues as the country's leading composer and conductor; with his departure he became a nonperson, and remained so until 1977.

Life in the west

Having left Poland without any money or possessions, income from occasional conducting engagements made it hard for Panufnik to make ends meet. He received financial support from fellow composers including Ralph Vaughan Williams and Arthur Benjamin; Panufnik was as heartened by the gesture of professional solidarity as much as by the money. His old friend the pianist Witold Małcużyński also helped by finding for Panufnik a wealthy patron. Scarlett published a book about Panufnik's life in Poland and his escape, but its surmises and inaccuracies distressed Panufnik. The couple were growing apart: Scarlett longed for constant company and excitement, while Panufnik craved peace and tranquility in order to compose.

For two years from 1957 to 1960 the financial situation eased slightly when Panufnik was appointed Principal Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Thereafter he concentrated on composition. He and his second wife, the distinguished photographer Camilla Jessel, moved into a house near the Thames in Twickenham, Greater London. His works were in demand by such major figures as Leopold Stokowski who conducted the first performance of Universal Prayer, Yehudi Menuhin who commissioned a violin concerto, and Mstislav Rostropovich who commissioned a cello concerto. He also received commissions from orchestras as far afield as London, Boston and Monte Carlo. Panufnik did not return to Poland until 1990. He was Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991. He died in Twickenham.

His daughter Roxanna Panufnik by his second wife Camilla is also a composer.

Compositions

The manuscripts and parts of a number of early compositions were lost as a consequence of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Panufnik reconstructed some of these in 1945.

Symphonies

Other vocal works

Other orchestral works

Ballets

While Panufnik's music has been used often for dance, two ballet scores were prepared by the composer using adaptations of existing works with new material.

Chamber works

Instrumental works

Pieces for young players

References

External links

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