By Michael Dervan [Irish Times, 8 September 2010]

HOW MANY Krzysztof Pendereckis are there? There’s the Penderecki who, back in 1959, entered three works into a composers’ competition in his native Poland, and won all three prizes. There’s the Penderecki who received international recognition for the startling sounds of his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima just a year later. There’s the man who combined the sound world of the musical avant-garde with the sacred text of St Luke’s Gospel to huge emotional effect in his St Luke Passion of 1966.