Sir Andrzej Panufnik (pronounced: ; 24 September 1914 – 27 October 1991) was a Polish and British composer and conductor. He became established as one of the leading Polish composers, and as a conductor he was instrumental in the re-establishment of the Warsaw Philharmonic orchestra after World War II. He also served as Principal Conductor of the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra.
After his increasing frustration with the extra-musical demands made on him by the country's regime, he defected to the United Kingdom in 1954, and took up British citizenship. In 1957, he was appointed chief conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a post he relinquished after two years to devote all his time to composition. In 1984, he became an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music and in 1991 the composer received a British knighthood for his services to music.
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 gave him piano lessons, but although he showed talent his studies were erratic. As a schoolboy he composed some successful popular tunes, but his father did not approve of his son's pursuing a musical career. Eventually his father relented, permitting the boy to study music provided he matriculated. By this time, Panufnik was too old to take the piano entrance examination for the Warsaw Conservatory, 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 normal.
Panufnik studied composition under Kazimierz Sikorski, the distinguished Polish composer and pedagogue. Although Sikorski provided him with an excellent education, he did not single out Panufnik as an exceptional student until the latter years of his studies. By contrast, it was another outstanding Polish composer, Witold Maliszewski, Panufnik's professor of the theory of musical forms, who first recognized Andrzej's extraordinary talent and told him that he possessed a unique gift for composition. Andrzej Panufnik, Composing Myself, p. 51.
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 national Polish medieval 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 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, however, 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 in 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, especially "Warsaw Children" which became popular among the defiant Polish community. During this period he composed a Tragic Overture and a second symphony. Later, Panufnik was able to conduct a couple of 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 a stranger who had taken over his rooms.
Socialist realism After World War II, Panufnik moved to Kraków where he found work composing film music for the Army Film Unit. Some of this inevitably 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 to film it being built. Panufnik accepted the post of Principal Conductor with the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra. He 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.Panufnik, 1987
Appointed Music Director of the defunct Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, traditionally Poland's leading orchestra, Panufnik set about engaging musicians and finding premises. When bureaucratic 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 (later published as Twelve Miniature Studies). His Lullaby for string orchestra and two harps was inspired by the combination of the River Thames and the night sky, when he saw "dark clouds drifting across a brilliant full moon", as viewed from Waterloo Bridge, while he was visiting London. In its use of quarter tones and dense textures 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 (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 post-war 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.
His Nocturne was singled out for criticism, and later General Włodzimierz Sokorski, Secretary of Culture, announced that Panufnik's Sinfonia Rustica had "ceased to exist". Panufnik later described the symphony as "a patently innocent work", and he 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 Composition Competition. The work was nevertheless published by the State Publishing House and, as Adrian Thomas has shown, performances of the work continued sporadically in Poland. While his compositions were branded 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 the Soviet Union as part of a Polish delegation to study Soviet teaching methods. He met Dmitri Shostakovich, whom he had befriended at previous conferences, and Aram Khachaturian. During conversations with other composers, Panufnik was pressed to say what he was working on. Having 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 with the authorities.
While he was writing the Symphony of Peace, he was struck by the beauty of an Irish woman he met, 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".