Postscriptum: Panufnik’s Last Years

Summary

The final decade of Andrzej Panufnik's life could be described as an ongoing crescendo of musical success until he was engulfed by a hidden cancer while he was still strong and energetic, aged only 77. Although Andrzej told me long before his death that, if I behaved like the proverbial composer's widow, he would ‘come back and haunt me’, I believe he would have wanted me to add an outline of the years after he completed his autobiography. If remaining in my mind is a form of haunting, he is indeed still there, constantly, and though I never aggressively promote his music, I still attempt to take care of his artistic legacy. Always, all the time, throughout our marriage I was by his side, dealing with the outside world for him, writing his letters, helping him with his English for programme notes, answering the telephone which he loathed. We shared everything. He would not travel unless I was with him, however important his attendance was to his professional life. The only important performance we both missed – because I was ill – was in Philadelphia, a planned performance of Sinfonia Sacra by Eugene Ormandy. The only premiere I ever missed was of Andrzej conducting Sinfonia Mistica, when one of our children had flu. This closeness provided me with a privileged perspective during his final decade and has encouraged me to complete his story.

In 1985 Andrzej Panufnik brought Composing Myself to a rapid close in order to start work on his Ninth Symphony. The book was published in Britain in 1987 by Methuen. It was a shock to discover that a year later in Poland translated chapters from this autobiography had landed their editor in prison as the name Panufnik was still blacklisted because of martial law. Andrzej's anti-Communist chapters began to be circulated at monthly intervals in an illicitly printed periodical, Antyk. This courageous endeavour was cut short when the editor-publisher, Marciń Dybowski, was arrested as he travelled from city to city delivering samizdat copies.