Anaklasis

This Ancient Greek title means ‘light refraction’ and is also a term in the field of classical metrics. Krzysztof Penderecki’s spectacular composition for strings and percussion from 1960 is one of the first examples of soundscape composition. The work transforms the optical term of light refraction into a musical-acoustic diversification of tonal colour and a concentration of the finest shades of noise. In its three sections, the tonal properties of seemingly contradictory instrumental groups are successively sounded out, alienated and ultimately brought to synthesis.