Symphony No. 3

The Symphony No. 3 is a symphony in five movements composed between 1988 and 1995 by Krzysztof Penderecki. It was commissioned and completed for the centenary of the Munich Philharmonic. Its earliest version, Passacaglia and Rondo (which later served as the basis for the second and fourth movements of the complete symphony), premiered at the International Music Festival Week in Lucerne, Switzerland, on August 20, 1988. It was performed by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and conducted by Penderecki. The full symphony premiered in Munich on 8 December 1995, performed by the Munich Philharmonic, again conducted by the composer. The Third Symphony exhibits a number of stylistic features which exemplify Penderecki's music of the 1980s, including motor rhythms, passages of free rhythm, chromatic scalar figures and emphasis on the minor second, dissonant intervals, and expanded percussion section. The work's dense counterpoint, innovative instrumentation, free harmonies, and complex rhythms make it stylistically similar to Penderecki's 1986 opera The Black Mask. Background Early in his career, Penderecki was one of the key figures associated with the Polish avant-garde movement of the 1960s. Penderecki was interested in freedom from conventional aspects of music—namely meter, rhythm, harmony, melody, and form. Important works from this period, particularly Anaklasis (1959–60), Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), and Fluorescences (1961–62), were experimental compositions characterized by blocks of sound of varying dynamics, extended techniques on acoustic instruments, and tone clusters.