Drafting New Music on the Beach
The composer’s wife recalls:
The summer stay in Jastrzębia Góra became a regular feature of our family’s annual schedule. I’d visited Hel already as a child. It’s where I met my husband and where he proposed to me. For the last 27 years we’ve been doing our best to spend at last a few days at ‘Leśna perła’ boarding house, which used to be our home for the summer when the children were small.
(after: Passion, p. 155)
The Pendereckis were frequently accompanied at the seaside by a wider circle of friends, whom some spitefully called their ‘court’. Legend has it that Penderecki wrote all of his Stabat Mater on the beach, but it was most likely only a draft. He used to stay behind at the boarding house, where he could compose for a while in peace while everyone else was gone to the seaside.