A Study of Krzysztof Penderecki's "Credo": How It Exemplifies His Compositional Style at the End of the 20th Century

137 p.Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006.Although there have been many discussions of Krzysztof Penderecki's compositions, most have dealt with aspects of his avant-garde style. Some commentators have noted, in his later compositions, a more traditional style in which his avant-garde ideas seem to have decreased in frequency and importance. Internal coherence or unity has been cited as an important element in Penderecki's Credo (1998); however the issue of coherence has yet to be studied in depth. None of the studies relating to Penderecki's works adequately examines his later sacred choral/orchestral works, and certainly none explores multiple aspects of the Credo in great detail. An examination of this work is therefore overdue. This study includes an examination of the Credo's form, texture, text (both textual content and the techniques by which the text is set), melodic content and harmonic elements. Comparisons are made to other works including Symphony No. 3 (1988/1995), Seven Gates of Jerusalem (1996), Serenade fur Streichorchester (1996/97), Luzerner Fanfare (1998) and Concerto grosso for Three Cellos and Orchestra (2000/01) to illustrate the context in which Credo was written. The study demonstrates that the Credo is an internally coherent work, representative of Penderecki's compositional style at the end of the 20th Century: a close examination of the musical materials shows clear consistency of style throughout the composition. This study proposes that Penderecki relies heavily on internal coherence of compositional elements in his recent style of composition, but also offers evidence that the principles of coherence evident in Credo are far-reaching.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD