Marek Dyżewski: "PENOMEN WOJCIECH KILAR "

We're like a lecture. Marek Dyzhewski "PENOMEN WARKILARA."

The lecture was given at the office of the Association of Polish Journalists at 3/5 Foksal Street in Warsaw on 21 June 2014.

The war annihilated our artistic elites, but fortunately, we were given to people who had at least part to compensate for their losses. These people made Poland the home of art of global importance. 1 of them is just Wojciech Kilar. 1 of them – Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and Krzysztof Penderecki appeared with him. Pointing to the year of their birth, they talk about the generation 1932-1933. They were respective years old erstwhile the war broke out, the war apocalypse was seen in a heightened dimension – with the eyes of kid sensitivity. The second half of the 1950s was for them a period of survey and primaries of their symphony, concerts, sonata. After 20 years, they appeared in the planet audience of contemporary music, which was the global festival of this music "Warsaw Autumn". In 1959, 60, 61, 62 they shaped the speech of this festival. They created the canon of modernity in music, defined fresh laws of musical beauty, transformed the very concept of music.

Górecki – Penderecki – Kilar. They were referred to as “Polish schools”. Although their goal was not to separate themselves from what was the cry of fashion in Europe. On the contrary, they wanted to catch up with Europe. They grew up fast. They absorbed the musical thought of Vienna's masters: Schönberg and Webern, the ideas of their French students – Boulevard, Xenakis. They went to Darmstadt to survey – avant-garde mecca. They wanted to catch up with the European lead, but they became the subject of admiration. Young Poles, as Gombrowicz would have said, brought their own “maturity” into Darmstadian music, speculative music, ruled by reason. In fact, they brought the surviving fire of art. The voice of the intellect was linked to the heart. Modernity of sound language? Yeah. But also: emotion, the power of expression, the power to influence the imagination of the listener.

How does today, from the position of forty years, the music of this "storm and force period", a period whose top evidence is the Collision of Henryk Górecki, Tren and Polymorphia of Krzysztof Penderecki, Diphthongos and Riff Wojciech Kilar? It must be admitted that fewer works of this period have endured the test of time. Most of them, as Wojciech Kilar says, constitute the “great cemetery of scores”. A cemetery of works that died immediately after the first work, due to the fact that they could not answer the question: why and for whom they were created.

If something in art is great, it cannot be for many, and if it is for many, it cannot be great. In these words, Arnold Schönberg sought comfort from many of the creators of fresh music, from which listeners turned. Wojciech Kilar did not request specified comfort. He believes that the value of music and its social scope do not should be excluded. He even thinks that this social scope should be a test of the value of the work. Wojciech Kilar, in a conversation with Leszek Polonym and Kladia Podobinińska, clearly says: “The works that performers want to play are truly valuable, and the audience – listen.” (I enjoy the gift of life. Talk to Wojciech Kilar. Claudia Podobinski and Leszek Polony. PWM 1997, p.30).

And specified works Wojciech Kilar gave Polish music. They are the decoration of performance programs and festivals, and they are gladly returned to them by orchestras, choirs, conductors and listeners. Their attractiveness, with each gathering with them, does not diminish, but increases significantly.

World fame was brought to Kilar by movie music. Kilarowski's achievements in movie music are huge. 120 films can be exchanged: Zanussi, Wajda, Kutz, Kieślowski, Polanski and abroad artists.

Wojciech Kilar loves mountains. He loves hiking in the Tatras. It was there, in the Tatra scenery and in the music of the Tatra mountaineers, which winged the imagination of many Polish music, that found a valuable origin of inspiration. Orawa, ecclesiastical, Siwa fog and Krzesany – in these works Kilar follows the voice of the Tatras. A mountain myth? Yes, the composer is delicate to that. But he besides has much to thank the musicians of the Highland bands. He found his masters in them. He learned from them the simplicity, the elementaryness of the musical language, learned the rhythm giving the music life and power, learned the trance in the instrument in which the musician introduces authentic improvisation.

There is strength and power in the God-parents of Kilarov. “We request specified a God-parent today,” said Kilar at the time of our apathy, (remember, it is 1975), at the time of the greyish of real socialism, at a time of hopelessness, erstwhile we believed that this must always be as it is. The prophetic speech of this work. Just 4 years later, Pope John Paul II called 3 million pilgrims in Krakow Błonie on his first journey to Poland: You must be strong! You must search spiritual power with Him in whom so many generations of our fathers and mothers found it (10.06.1979).

When it comes to sound substance itself, Kilarowski Exodus grows out of the Hebrew spiritual melody, constantly repeated here. Ravel's “Bolero” comes to mind. due to the fact that it is indeed a Kilarowska consequence to Ravelowski's idea. The thought of repeating the same melody over and over again, in an increasingly dense and massive sound garment. The form of the work grows and grows in monumental crescendo to scope its sound peak. But note: Ravel's is simply a long melody, and Kilar's is an highly simple, lapidary, only seven-sonic formula.

When it comes to joy, you can scope to the Psalm verses forever. 15 Psalms closing the Book of Psalms is 1 large apology of joy.

Isaiah says: (12.3):

And it is this forgotten, long-lost note of spiritual joy that Wojciech Kilar reminds us of in the temples and composition workshops. It's like Exodus. And it reminds Gloria of the latest sacred work: Missa pro pace.