Wielka synteza – od dogmatu do dramatu. O Credo Krzysztofa Pendereckiego
The Great Synthesis – From Dogma to Drama. On Krzysztof Penderecki’s Credo

Summary/Abstract: One of Krzysztof Penderecki’s key works is classified by scholars to the period of the so-called “Great Synthesis”: composition techniques from the previous phases of the composer’s oeuvre underwent a new selection and re-hierarchization. Synthesis, as the creator has it, is not a mere, mechanical connecting of elements, but an act of including them in a “unifying experience”. In Credo, it manifests itself by allusions not only to Penderecki’s entire oeuvre, but also to the thousand-year European musical tradition and, what is most significant, by giving the whole piece a particularly personal character. Out of many perspectives in interpreting of Penderecki’s masterpiece, the author of this article focuses on three: creating the musical narrative in accordance with the “musical characters and symbols” of the romantic era, multi-level new rhetorical references in the musicalization of the Word, and finally – a reflection on the alluded to religious archetypes, or as Mieczysław Tomaszewski called them, the “sacrum characters.”

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