Book Review
Nov. 8th, 2008 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariA Polish Renaissance
by Bernard Jacobson
This is one of the Phaidon series of books about contemporary composers, so it's got good breadth, but not necessarily a huge amount of analytical depth. This book focuses on 20th century Polish composers, specifically Andrzej Panufnik, Witold Lutoslawski, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Henryk Gorecki. I found the material really interesting - there's a lot of good information not just about the four composers but also about the contemporary music scene in Poland and the way composers dealt with the various Polish regimes of the 20th century. My only serious criticism of A Polish Renaissance is that Jacobson has a very clear bias towards Panufnik and to a lesser extent, Gorecki, while I am personally more interested in Penderecki and Lutoslawski.
by Bernard Jacobson
This is one of the Phaidon series of books about contemporary composers, so it's got good breadth, but not necessarily a huge amount of analytical depth. This book focuses on 20th century Polish composers, specifically Andrzej Panufnik, Witold Lutoslawski, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Henryk Gorecki. I found the material really interesting - there's a lot of good information not just about the four composers but also about the contemporary music scene in Poland and the way composers dealt with the various Polish regimes of the 20th century. My only serious criticism of A Polish Renaissance is that Jacobson has a very clear bias towards Panufnik and to a lesser extent, Gorecki, while I am personally more interested in Penderecki and Lutoslawski.
