He is known and respected throughout the music world and beyond. He was one of the first Europeans to win serious recognition in China. The world's greatest music capitals vie to host the world premieres of his works. Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki turned 75 this year, an event marked by numerous concerts and festivals featuring his music.

One such festival was held Nov. 20-23 in Warsaw's leading concert halls: the National Philharmonic, the Royal Castle and the Wielki Theater/National Opera. It was organized, on a scale and in a format in keeping with the composer's stature, by the Ludwig van Beethoven Society.

Four days with the music of just one composer, and contemporary music to boot, may have seemed a risky project, especially with two or even three concerts held on each of the festival days. Actually, that was one of the discoveries of this festival: you listen to Penderecki the same way you listen to the kind of fundamental concert repertoire that the works of Bach, Beethoven or Schubert are regarded to be. His music remains open for creative performers. This was another important aspect of the festival-new, creative interpretations from a large and excellent international group of musicians. Thanks to such musicians as violinists Viviane Hagner and Grigori Zhislin, viola player Tabea Zimmermann, cellists Arto Noras, Laszlo Fenyo, Claudio Bohorquez, Ivan Monigetti and Danjulo Ishizaka, flutist Massimo Mercelli and the Shanghai Quartet, to mention just a few, Penderecki's music was offered with a broad range of flavors.

Of the several orchestras giving concerts during the festival, the performance by Sinfonietta Cracovia deserves special mention; the ensemble was expanded to a great symphony orchestra to play works such as the Concerto Grosso and Symphony No. 2. These were excellent interpretations, especially Concerto Grosso with three great cellists and conductor Gabriel Chmura, who oversaw the whole piece perfectly, highlighting (as few conductors have so far) both the beauty and the exquisite technique and formal aspects of the score.

To anyone attending the whole festival, the greatest discovery must surely have been Penderecki's chamber music. "I am turning to chamber music having realized that you can say more in a muted voice, condensed to the sound of three or four instruments," Penderecki has said about his latest compositions. "This escape into musical privacy is a kind of response to our fin de siecle, to that acceleration of the clock of history and the confusion linked to reshuffling of standards in culture, ethics and politics."

That is exactly what his Sextet sounds like, "private and muted" in the lyrical sections; also the latest String Quartet No. 3 played for the first time at the festival by the Shanghai Quartet. It's hard to find words that best describe the character of this new composition. These spring to mind: beautiful music, very personal. And to think this is "contemporary" music! The subtitle says a lot: "Pages from an unwritten journal."

This is Penderecki today. A master of great forms who attains perfection in chamber music and condensed sounds.

The festival concluded at the National Opera with a presentation of the monumental Seven Gates of Jerusalem, with an appropriately monumental cast conducted by the maestro himself.

Jan Popis