What is "polymorphia"

n. polymorphism

Polymorphia is a musical composition for 48 string instruments (twenty-four violins and eight each of violas, cellos and basses) composed by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki in 1961. The piece was commissioned by the North German Radio Hamburg. It premiered on April 16, 1962 by the radio orchestra and was conducted by Andrzej Markowski. Polymorphia is dedicated to Hermann Moeck, the first of Penderecki’s editors in the West.

At the end of the 1950s and in the early 1960s (Penderecki’s post student years), he sought out new sonic and technical possibilities of instruments, particularly strings, by unconventional means of articulation and peculiar treatment of sound-pitch. In doing so, Penderecki abandoned the traditional notation system and invented his own graphic notation, which was inspired by electroencephalograms. His earlier composition, Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), received the first success of this type of work. Polymorphia was composed soon afterward as a result of his continuation with such experimental innovation.

In Greek, poly means "many" and morph means "shape" or "form" (from the Greek morphe), therefore Polymorphia can be understood as “many shapes or forms.” Polymorphia literally means “the same meaning in many different forms.” The “forms” here do not refer to musical forms but sound effects. Penderecki’s biographer Wolfram Schwinger associates the title Polymorphia, with “the broadly deployed scale of sound...the exchange and simultaneous penetration of sound and noise, the contrast and interflow of soft and hard sounds.” Similar to Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, Penderecki constructed the piece by sound events. Instead of “melody”, dense clusters, microtones and glissandi are heard. Perhaps most notable, the dissonant sonorist piece ends with a C major triad.