Orchestra – Wielka Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia W Katowicach
Organ, Pianoforte – Stanisław Radwan
Penderecki’s The Saragossa Manuscript soundtrack is a remarkable mix of a quasi-quotation of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from his Ninth Symphony, recurring Spanish baroque like acoustic guitar, and Electroacoustic music composed at the Polish Radio Experimental Studio. While the more traditional elements of the soundtrack remind us that we are in fact watching a film based on a late Enlightenment / pre-Romantic novel, it is the cutting edge experiments in electronic music that undoubtedly catch the ear most, reminding us that we are watching anything but a conventional film.
Along with hundreds of other films, TV and Radio scores of the period, the avant-garde electrical sections of the soundtrack were composed at the Polish Radio Experimental Studio in Warsaw. The studio was opened in 1957 by Jozef Patkowski and by 1960s, Penderecki (along with Kotonski) had risen to become its most prominent figures. It was a truly remarkable place that opened up the era of electroacoustic music in Poland, welcoming both Polish and foreign composers in to experiment with recording instruments and vocals onto magnetic tape, cutting them up and adding effects, over 20 years before samplers and digital editing.
The Saragossa Manuscript catches Penderecki at a crossroads in his musical career. While the decade before represents his most modernistic period, by the mid 70s he was increasingly moving against the modernism he previously represented claiming composers had “forgotten about music”. Therefore while Has’ film represents traditionalism transformed into modernism, Penderecki was actually moving in the opposite direction, yet at the time of production both meet at exactly the same point.
Remarkably, somehow when placed against the film, Penderecki’s soundtrack unarguably makes perfect sense. Penderecki also scored Wojciech Has’ The Codes (1966) and Kubrick’s 2001 and The Shining.
Fun fact: The film was released in Poland uncut at 182 minutes, but it was shortened for release in the U.S. and UK at 147 minutes and 125 minutes, respectively. During the 1990s Jerry Garcia (of the Grateful Dead), together with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, financed a restoration and subtitling of an uncut print of the film. The restored film, re-released in 2001, is commercially available in VHS and DVD formats.
