The Zygmunt Krauze Thread

[Maciek]

A search for Zygmunt Krauze on the forum revealed that while far from being a constant presence, he does occasionally crop up here and there (and no, they are not all my posts! whatever do you mean).

If the fact that he has composed 10 operas is anything to go by, there is a demand for his music, so I am a bit surprised he doesn't get recorded more (though the 2010s were a fruitful decade). He is significant not only as a composer, but also as pianist and founder of the ensemble Warsztat Muzyczny ["Music Workshop"]. This was a clarinet-trombone-cello-piano quartet, though in point of fact the gentlemen who formed it never limited themselves to those instruments only. They also played hurdy-gurdies, backpipes, folk violins, fifes, bells and all sorts of sound devices. The ensemble was a major force in the music of its time (they were active 1967-1988), as it is said to have premiered over 100 new pieces (including Serocki's Swinging Music and Górecki's Musiquette No. 4). They started a performance tradition that was later picked up by Nonstrom Ensemble, and more recently by gnarwhallaby.

Krauze himself is often described as an avant-gardist, perhaps even a staunch avant-gardist, but it is a completely different avant-garde than the one of the Polish 1960s. He was born in 1938, so conceivably could have joined the sonoristic set, but instead he carved a unique path for himself, never fully subscribing to any existing trends, always concentrated on his own individual explorations. This has led to a multi-faceted body of work.

Initially, his fascination with the paintings of Władysław Strzemiński lead him to developing his own "unistic" music. This was conceived as a sort of contrast-less music, an aural canvas where all points are of equal importance and every area of the "musical painting" is representative of the whole, there is no "development". The music is contrast-less but not static. It is a sort of constantly moving, sometimes even effervescent mass. Essentially, a kind of minimalism, but then not quite, or at least a minimalism of a different kind.

Major pieces representing this phase in his output are
Piece for Orchestra No. 1  (Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra/Arturo Tamayo):

and Piece for Orchestra no. 2 (Sender Freies Berlin Orchestra/Andrzej Markowski):

Ideally, unistic music should essentially have no beginning or end: performers should be able to start and end at any point, and so should listeners. This way of thinking led to another branch of his output: "spatial compositions", ie. pieces meant to be performed in specific interiors, where different music is performed (played back) in different spaces (rooms) and listeners are free to move between these spaces, at whim ending and beginning their experience with each musical section and the whole piece. These often have performing versions suited for the concert hall as well.

Then there is a strong current of fascination with heterophony and the phenomenon of asynchronicity in music performance, ie. either the asynchronous performance of the same melody by several voices (instruments) or even the simultaneous performing of different versions of the same melody. As when the same melody is performed slightly out of sync, in different registers, on the same out-of-tune upright piano. Which is what happens in his One Piano Eight Hands (though it has to be said the piano is not, strictly speaking, out-of-tune, but rather "de-tuned" according to specific, if somewhat loose, instructions). Here it is (only an excerpt, played by Hubert Zemler, John Tilbury, Szabolcs Esztényi, Zygmunt Krauze) - only photos here, but you can see that the performance can have a theatrical aspect (the score offers directions for such a performance, describing the costumes and the behavior of the pianists on stage):

The fascination with heterophony coincides with his interest in traditional music and traditional performance techniques (I already mentioned that members of Warsztat Muzyczny played on folk instruments). A piece representative of this tendency is Aus aller Welt Stammende. Here are movements 3 and 4 (New Music Orchestra/Szymon Bywalec):

He is also interested in exploring the potential of not just new or underused instruments, but also modified ones. So there are pieces for prepared piano, such as the Arabesque for prepared piano and orchestra, or Stone Music - the latter involves not just playing the piano, but manipulating the stones inside it (possibly the same is done in Arabesque - I wouldn't know, I'm only familiar with the sound version ). The effects are nowhere as percussive as you would imagine, but rather enhance the stringed character of the instrument. Here is a recording of Stone Music (with the composer playing):

If you haven't realized it yet, Krauze is not averse to introducing elements of theatricality to his pieces. Here is Gloves Music (composer performing):

An interesting aspect of a large chunk of his body of work is that there is a whole series of pieces that are built around similarly constructed melodic motifs, similar melodic material. As an example of that, take a listen to his wonderful Piano Quintet - one of his greatest works, in my opinion (Zygmunt Krauze, Silesian String Quartet):

And compare that to his Quartuor pour la Naissance (Mirosław Pokrzywiński, Krzysztof Bąkowski, Andrzej Bauer, Zygmunt Krauze):

And now compare that to, say, the fourth movement of his 2nd Piano Concerto (Zygmunt Krauze, NOSPR/Wojciech Michniewski):

And compare that to, say, the Violin Concerto (Andrzej Kulka, National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra/Tadeusz Strugała):

Or the Symphonie parisienne (Sinfonia Varsovia/Jan Krenz):

Or the 3rd String Quartet (Silesian String Quartet):

Obviously, these are different pieces. But then, in a sense... well, they are maybe... variations on the same theme?

I haven't covered everything here. There are more than a few CDs to choose from, though often difficult to track down. His web page (here) lists "four categories" of his music, but the divisions are not always clear, at least not to me: 1) unistic (unitary) music, 2) spatial compositions performed in specially constructed interiors, 3) music about music, 4) music of returning to the roots.

Places of particular interest on the web are the composer's internet site that I've just mentioned and his YouTube channel (77 uploaded videos and counting, all the performances above come from there).

(I know, I know, I could have thought of a catchier thread title; Zygmunt's Zeugma or something, it would play to the composer's sense of humor I suppose...)