Penderecki in Peterborough: the avant-garde as industrial relations

Event details

The title page to the printed score of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Symphony no. 1 (1973) records that the work was ‘commissioned by Perkins Engines, Peterborough (England)’. A symphony that has come to be regarded as the culmination of Penderecki’s experiments with ‘sonorism’ – the starkly gestural style that Penderecki made a personal trademark in the preceding 15 years – was thus brought into the world by an industrial manufacturer in a small city 75 miles north of London, who paid Penderecki a £2000 fee for the work, and premiered it at their annual workers’ concert in Peterborough Cathedral.

This highly unexpected circumstance has been noted by commentators, but never further explored. Two obvious questions arise. Why did Perkins, a commercial interest entirely removed from the usual circuits of modern music production, decide to patronise the musical avant-garde in this way? And why did they choose Penderecki – a citizen of socialist Poland – specifically? In attempting to answer these questions, my research places the commission in the context of the industrial relations of the time, notably the push by Perkins’ management for global competitiveness in the face of workers’ opposition. I also ask what consequence these circumstances have for the experience of Penderecki’s symphony today.

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About the speaker

Robert Adlington

Robert Adlington is Head of Research and Doctoral Programmes at the Royal College of Music. He previously worked at the University of Sussex, the University of Nottingham, and the University of Huddersfield. He has written books on the composers Harrison Birtwistle and Louis Andriessen, and on the musical avant-garde in 1960s Amsterdam. His latest book is Musical Models of Democracy (OUP, 2023), which explores how progressive musicians of the past 60 years have engaged with varied ideas of democracy.