<<  -- 5 --  Tess Crebbin    EUROPAMUSICALE POLAND

An improvement might have been the inclusion of two Polish composers who are real crowd-pullers. Very notably missing was an excerpt from Gorecki's haunting third symphony (Symphony of Sorrows) or any other Gorecki for that matter, and Preisner's Song for the 'Unification of Europe', a bombastic choral symphony snippet based on the final movement of the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. Its theme is that of this year's Europamusicale, the expansion of the European Union. Preisner, also from the Krakow region, was one of the first composers to foresee a united Europe and use this musically.

'I couldn't include everyone', Penderecki said during an interview before the concert. 'That is why Gorecki is not there. As for Preisner, I did not know that he had composed such a piece, or I might have considered it.'

The Song of the Unification of Europe is one of Preisner's best-known pieces and has found worldwide acclaim. It also served as the choral finish for the symphony in Krzyslowski's award-winning movie Three Colours Blue, which is the story of a celebrated composer who dies in a car accident and leaves an unfinished symphonic masterpiece behind. Preisner remains one of Poland's most famous composers, and he manages the unusual by being successful in the classical and film genre. He does not like atonality and caused a big stir when he created an alter-ego for himself, Van den Budenmeyer, as a newly discovered classical composer from a few centuries ago. The world's music critics fell for it, hook, line and sinker, and started talking about the genial 'newly discovered' composer. Nobody believed it was a contemporary composer who had written this music, not even when Preisner lifted the lid on his pseudonym.

Watch out for a forthcoming article featuring Zbigniew Preisner.