From Kubrick to Aphex Twin, Lynch to Radiohead, the Polish composer’s otherworldly sounds have inspired musicians and soundtracked some of cinema’s most haunting moments
When I unearthed a score of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Symphony No 1 in my local library during my early teens, my idea of what
music could be changed forever. I knew how conventional music sat on the page, but the score of Penderecki’s symphony looked like a byzantine scientific diagram had somehow got mangled in the photocopier with an Ordnance Survey map: disembodied staves, notes scattering everywhere, thick black lines sliding off the page. Once I managed to find a recording, it sounded great too – an utterly addictive playground of restless, relentlessly surprising noise.
Penderecki, whose death at the age of 86 was announced today, was born in Dębica, in south-east Poland in 1933. He emerged as a force in Polish modern composition alongside such figures as Witold Lutosławski, Tadeusz Baird, Andrzej Dobrowolski and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki who, during the late 1950s, were all constructing pieces using clusters of notes jam-packed together, often requiring players to explore terrain that pushed beyond the conventions of their instrument.