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IN THE LABYRINTH

I practice various musical forms looking in them for the answer to pervading questions and doubts. Search for order and harmony is associated with the feeling of collapse and apocalypses. The external world often invades brutally my internal life. It makes me compose such pieces as: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, Dies irae or Polish Requiem. It is an important part of my work. However, the world of music is an ideal world. Therefore, I am very glad to turn to a pure musical form not contaminated by externality. I wander and roam entering my symbolic labyrinth. Only a roundabout way may lead you to fulfilment. I have also built a labyrinth in my garden in Lusławice. And I feel safe in it. I can go back and find new ways. I leave my labyrinth unwillingly. And here in Lusławice my most favourable music is created: symphonies taking years to write and chamber music, or my musica domestica. I escape here into intimacy, the world close to silence. And it seems to me that I am getting close to the essence of music.

Krzysztof Penderecki

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