Symphony No. 3 (Penderecki)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Symphony No. 3 is a symphony for orchestra in five movements composed between 1988 and 1995 by Krzysztof Penderecki. It was commissioned and completed for the 100 year celebration of the Munich Philharmonic. Its earliest version, Passacaglia and Rondo (which later served as the basis for the second and fourth movements of the complete symphony), premiered at the International Music Festival Week in Lucerne, Switzerland, on August 20, 1988. It was performed by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and conducted by Penderecki. The full symphony premiered in Munich on December 8, 1995, and performed by the Munich Philharmonic, again under the composer's baton.
Symphony No. 3 exhibits a number of stylistic features which exemplify Penderecki's music of the 1980s, including motor rhythms, passages of free rhythm, chromatic scalar figures and emphasis on the minor second, dissonant intervals, and expanded percussion section. The work's dense counterpoint, innovative instrumentation, free harmonies, and complex rhythms make it stylistically similar to Penderecki's 1986 opera The Black Mask.
