Krzysztof Penderecki

“There is something about performing my own music, and other people's music, that gives me pleasure. I think I learn more by doing that than I ever did studying music.”

“I always felt independent of musical fashion.”

“I take commissions because I know I'll have to get up early in the morning and work.”

“My grandfather taught me trees and the Latin names of trees when I was five or six. His father was a forester, so he knew them all.”

“At school, I wrote in the style of the Dutch composers. After I graduated, a new style set in.”

“The 1960s were a time of cultural revolution in Poland. And I was a part of that revolution. For me, those years - the late 1950s and early 1960s - were the most fruitful.”

“I wrote 'Threnody,' then I wrote several works where I changed my music completely.”

“I used to do most of my composing at a little table in a cafe. Composing for 52 instruments, I had to figure out how to accommodate myself to the small table.”

“Writing music is something very natural... this is the way to communicate with other people.”

“When writing music for the 'Kaddish,' I evoked the prayers that were sung in Eastern Galicia, Ukraine and Romania. I was advised by my late friend, Boris Carmeli... He would sing me various melodies that were sung by his grandfather, thus they had to be at least as old as the mid-19th century.”

“If I were reborn, if I were a teen-ager now, starting my career as a composer, I would do again what I have done.”

“I have about 1,700 species of trees, almost everything that can grow in our climate.”

“I started music late.”

“If I would be born in New Zealand, maybe, I would never write the Polish Requiem or pieces which were connected with the history of war. But this was my childhood. War was the main subject, and also in our family.”

“Listening to classical music is like reading philosophy books. Not everybody has to do it.”

“I don't believe in a composer who is only able to compose, who can't play or conduct, can only use a computer. If that trend continues there will be no more symphonies, no more oratorios.”

“Latin is an international language.”

“There was this kind of dictatorship of the Darmstadt school, composers like Boulez and Stockhausen, who were very strict and orthodox. They would not allow other composers to write the music they wanted to write, and only a certain kind of music could be played.”

“I'm not a minimalist, not at all. I feel much better, safer even, having a large piece.”

“Usually composers need a reason to write. I need a deadline.”