Kryszztof Penderecki

After watching The Exorcist this weekend again, it reminded me of the first time I listened to the compositions of Penderecki. After all, it's only fitting that a man of such terror driven (musical) ambitions would create certain segments of the aural world for that truly horrifying film.

His piece, Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, was a piece that is one of the most memorable compositions I've ever heard. The 52 stringed instrument arrangement is not played as a normal arrangement where the start and finish are defined, but at times, the orchestra were asked to play at random places of the song and also to play on unusual parts of their instrument (e.g.: for the violinists, they were asked to play on the opposite side of the bridge). All of this created an aural world that wreaked of novelty, but at the same time, resulted in a primordial composition that sounded like the cries and screams of the victims of Hiroshima. 


Many artists have since then taken cues from that piece such as Radiohead's Climbing Up the Walls from OK Computer and Jonny Greenwood's soundtrack for There Will be Blood. 


go to this link for a sample of this piece: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfBVYhyXU8o