composers

Just picked this up the other day and listened to it today.

Composer, Krzysztof Penderecki, wrote a violin concerto specifically for violinist Isaac Stern.

If you’re not familiar with this composer, you’ve likely heard his piece ‘Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima’ used in films like The Shining, The People Under The Stairs, Twin Peaks, and more.

‘Threnody’ is known for its relentless wall of dissonance and atonality. The violin concerto was composed later and returned to a more tonal leaning, but utilized the textural and gestural techniques developed in his more extreme earlier works.

The violin is the main focus throughout the entire work, but the orchestra does all these insane impressionistic things to highlight the melody and shift gears. Sometimes it sounds like bells, sometimes a bunch of car horns, constantly making gestures that feel physical like someone swiping a paint brush across a canvas.