Wikipedia

Zbigniew Preisner

Zbigniew Preisner(Polish:[ˈzbiɡɲɛfˈprajsnɛr];born 20 May 1955 asZbigniew Antoni Kowalski)[1]is a Polishfilm scorecomposer,best known for his work withfilm directorKrzysztof Kieślowski.He is the recipient of the GoldMedal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artisas well as the Knight's Cross of theOrder of Polonia Restituta.He is a member of theFrench Film Academy.[2]

Zbigniew Preisner
Preisner in 2011
Born
Zbigniew Antoni Kowalski

(1955-05-20)20 May 1955(age 69)
Bielsko-Biała,Poland
NationalityPolish
Occupationcomposer
Years active1981 – present
Websitewww.preisner

Life

edit

Zbigniew Preisner was born inBielsko-Biała,southern Poland, and studied history and philosophy at theJagiellonian UniversityinKraków.Never having received formal music lessons, he taught himself music by listening and transcribing parts fromrecords.His compositional style represents a distinctively sparse form oftonalneo-Romanticism.PaganiniandJean Sibeliusare acknowledged influences.[3]

Career

edit

Preisner is best known for the music composed for the films directed by fellow Pole Krzysztof Kieślowski. HisSong for the Unification of Europe,based on the Greek text of1 Corinthians 13,is attributed to a character in Kieślowski'sThree Colors: Blueand plays a dominating role in the story. His music forThree Colors: Redincludes a setting ofPolishand French versions of a poem byWisława Szymborska,a PolishNobel Prize-winning poet.[4]

After working with Kieślowski onThree Colors: Blue,Preisner was hired by the producerFrancis Ford Coppolato write the score forThe Secret Garden,directed by Polish directorAgnieszka Holland.Although Preisner is most closely associated with Kieślowski, he has collaborated with several other directors, winning aCésarin 1996 for his work onJean Becker'sÉlisa.He has won a number of other awards, including another César in 1994 forThree Colors: Red,and theSilver Bearfrom the47th Berlin International Film Festival1997 forThe Island on Bird Street.[5]He was nominated forGolden Globeawards for his scores forThree Colors: Blue(1993) andAt Play in the Fields of the Lord(1991).

In 1998,Requiem for My Friend,Preisner's first large scale work not written for film, premiered. It was originally intended as a narrative work to be written byKrzysztof Piesiewiczand directed by Kieślowski, but it became a memorial to Kieślowski after the director's death. TheLacrimosafrom this Requiem appears inTerrence Malick'sThe Tree of Life.TheDies Iraefrom this Requiem appears in the filmLa Grande Bellezza,directed byPaolo Sorrentino[6]and in the second season of the television seriesThe Crown.[7]

Preisner composed the theme music for thePeople's Century,a monumental 26-partdocumentarymade jointly in 1994 by theBBCtelevision network in United Kingdom and thePBStelevision network in the United States. He has also worked with directorThomas Vinterbergon the 2003 filmIt's All About Love.He provided orchestration forDavid Gilmour's 2006 albumOn An Islandas well as additional orchestrations for the show atGdańsk shipyardsat which he also conducted the Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra, this was documented on the albumLive in Gdańsk(2008).Silence, Night and Dreamsis Zbigniew Preisner's new recording project, a large-scale work for orchestra, choir and soloists, based on texts from theBook of Job.The premier recording, was released in 2007 with the lead singer ofMadredeus,Teresa Salgueiroand boy soprano Thomas Cully fromLibera.[8]

Van den Budenmayer

edit

Van den Budenmayer is a fictitious 17th-century Dutch composer created by Preisner and directorKrzysztof Kieślowskifor attributions in screenplays.[3]Preisner said Van den Budenmayer is a pseudonym he andKieślowskiinvented "because we both loved the Netherlands". Music "by" the Dutch composer plays a role in threeKieślowskifilms. The first isDekalog(1988). The second isThree Colours: Blue(1993) in which a theme from hismusique funebresis quoted in theSong for the Unification of Europe.Its E minor soprano solo prefigured in the earlier filmThe Double Life of Veronique(1991), where circumstances in the story prevent the solo from finishing. The third isThree Colours: Red(1994).[9][10]

Works

edit

Orchestral works

edit

Music for solo instruments

edit

Theatre

edit

Film scores

edit

References

edit
  1. ^":: Muzyka:: RMF FM".rmf.fm.
  2. ^"Zbigniew Preisner - Biography".Retrieved12 February2022.
  3. ^abmusicolog."Zbigniew Preisner".
  4. ^"Zbigniew Preisner".Retrieved2019-09-24.
  5. ^"Berlinale: 1997 Prize Winners".berlinale.de.Retrieved2012-01-08.
  6. ^"The Great Beauty".Allmusic.RetrievedApril 2,2015.
  7. ^"The Crown".Tunefind.RetrievedDecember 30,2017.
  8. ^emiclassicsSilence, Night and Dreams release info
  9. ^Greiving, Tim."Under the Sign of Sadness: Zbigniew Preisner's Three Colors Scores".The Criterion Collection.Retrieved2023-02-22.
  10. ^ Krzysztof Kieślowski (2003). "A Discussion on Working with Kieślowski".Trois Couleurs: Blanc(DVD extra). Burbank CA: Miramax. Event occurs at 15:12–17:32.ISBN0-7888-4146-7.They had this private joke about – well it wasn't that private because they put it into the films – about a composer, Van Budenmayer. [sic] (Geoff Andrew) It was like a red little thread, as we say in French, you know, that we – a little something we can see in many films. (Irène Jacob) It was forDekalognumber nine, where the secondary character of Ola, a beautiful young woman who is about to have elective heart surgery tells the doctor that she sings the music of Van den Budenmayer. And in the next scene, you see the doctor listening to the album of this music, which, by the way, in the screenplay, was not Van den Budenmayer at all. It was Mahler, or something. In other words, this was after the script was written that they started to have fun with the fictive Van den Budenmayer, a Dutch composer. Well, after that they started getting letters of people asking, 'Who is Van den Budenmayer? How can I buy his music? Does it exist on cassette?' So what did they do? They brought him back inThe Double Life of Véronique.(Annette Insdorf) I really like this piece. It's by a very interesting composer. He was discovered only recently...although he lived in Holland over two centuries ago. (film excerpt subtitles) And then he's mentioned inBlue;the character of Julie says to Olivier that she has this memento that was supposed to invoke Van den Budenmayer. (Insdorf) He told me: 'It's a memento.' Try weaving it back in. Van den Budenmayer? (film excerpt subtitles)Whiteis the only one where Van den Budenmayer doesn't make a direct appearance, but he comes back forcefully inRedin a number of ways. (Insdorf) I'd like number 432. Van den Budenmayer. Did I pronounce it right? Yes. This one? (film excerpt subtitles) We even see a picture of him. Of course he didn't exist. It was just this little joke they had between them. (Andrew) At the New York Film Festival press conference, um, Kieślowski had a great time telling the story – and I was translating – of how he's now gotten letters from an encyclopedia, I think it is, telling him that he must cease and desist from using the music of Van den Budenmayer without paying royalties to the estate, or else they might be sued. He thinks this is utterly hilarious because there is no Van den Budenmayer, but they've been way too persuasive in suggesting that there is one. (Insdorf)
edit
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zbigniew_Preisner&oldid=1256531520"