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Born in Poland at the start of World War 1, Panufnik was composing by the age of 11, but his training in Paris and Vienna was soon interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. After surviving the war, the Warsaw Uprising (in which his brother died) and the Communist takeover of Poland, Panufnik's instinctive loyalty to Poland led him to stay and work as a conductor and film composer. The regime's pressure on him to serve as cultural ambassador and the increasingly proscriptive cultural directives foisted upon Polish artists from Moscow made it almost impossible for him to compose as he wished and in 1954 he escaped to London. In the UK he faced difficulties of other kinds: first, the necessity of making a living, but also an ironically proscriptive regime at the BBC which for many years would only broadcast contemporary music that matched its directors' views on what contemporary music should be. In Poland, his music was banned. In 1963 Panufnik married Camilla Jessel, a young photographer and writer, and it was only when his home life provided him with the stability and support that he had lacked for so long that he was able to devote himself entirely to composition at last. Later in life Panufnik was presented with numerous awards and accolades; in 1991 he was knighted in the New Year Honours list. The previous year he had returned to Poland for the first time, where his music was finally to be played at the Warsaw Autumn Festival. He died in October 1991, aged 77. Panufnik's music bears a distinctive voice, very much of its time but always universal in its spirit of courage and humanity. His works include ten symphonies, orchestral tone poems and concertos, music for solo piano, string quartets, songs, choral music and works for young people. |
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