Published
Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, also translated as Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima is a musical composition for 52 string instruments composed in 1961 by Krzysztof Penderecki. Dedicated to the residents and hibakusha who were killed or wounded in Hiroshima during the first-ever wartime usage of an atomic weapon, Penderecki’s threnody won the Tribune Internationale des Compositeurs UNESCO prize in 1961.
Penderecki’s stated intent with the composition was to “develop a new musical language”. Penderecki later said, “It existed only in my imagination, in a somewhat abstract way.” When he heard an actual performance, “I was struck by the emotional charge of the work … I searched for associations and, in the end, I decided to dedicate it to the Hiroshima victims”.
The 52 string instruments meld together in sonoristic manipulation and counterpoint in a manner which, according to reviewer Paul Griffiths, makes the listener “uneasy by choosing to refer to an event too terrible for string orchestral screams”.