Zbigniew Preisner was an unknown composer in 1988 when he agreed to write the scores for all ten episodes of Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue. The project was a challenge because the score for each episode was slightly different, yet the music needed to work as a whole. Preisner's success on this project brought him widespread acclaim and propelled his career into the international arena.
Considering his world-wide reputation, it comes as a surprise that Preisner never formally studied music. Born in 1955 in Bielsko-Biala, Poland, he entered the history and philosophy department at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow where he studied art history. He taught himself music by buying records and then deconstructing the compositions, rewriting bits and pieces to compliment or enhance the original. To hone his skills, he tried out his original compositions by playing with students enrolled at Krakow's Academy of Music. Around 1977-78, he discovered the cabaret scene in Krakow and began composing music for the famous Piwnica pod Baranami (Cellar Under the Ram).
Shortly thereafter, a young Polish film director named Antoni Krauze asked him to write an original score for his film Weather Report. Though the film was shelved for several years for political reasons, the experience launched Preisner's career as a composer of film music. Through Krauze, Preisner met Krzysztof Kieslowski, who was looking for someone to write the score for No End. Their collaboration resulted in a long-lasting working relationship and a deep abiding friendship.
The Decalogue is a deft cinematic achievement in that it consists of ten separate stories with ten separate casts, yet hangs together as a series based on one source - the Ten Commandments. One of the elements that helps tie the series together is the music, which represents the vision of one composer - Zbigniew Preisner. Despite the unity of style, the music itself is not exactly the same from episode to episode. At times lush, at times striking, the music of each episode enhances the dominant mood or idea. In Episode 5, for example, which is based on the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," the spare use of a limited range of musical notes suits the stripped-down story of murder and retribution.
After Preisner scored The Decalogue, he went on to write the music for Kieslowski's Double Life of Veronique and the highly successful trilogy Three Colors: Red, White, and Blue. He also worked with another Polish director, Agnieszka Holland, beginning with To Kill a Priest in 1988 and continuing with Europa, Europa, Olivier, Olivier, and The Secret Garden. International acclaim from Decalogue, Veronique, and Europa, Europa led him to the attention of Hollywood filmmakers, and in 1991, he composed the score for Luis Mandoki’s At Play in the Fields of the Lord and John Irvin's Eminent Domain. Since then he has composed the scores for an array of films from all over the world, from Hector Babenkis' Corazon Iluminado to Thomas Vinterberg's It's All About Love.
Preisner, who often refers to his own style as "romanticism," prefers the work of composers Paganini and Sibelius as well as that of the romantic Polish composers; he eschews modern styles that lack strong melodies. He describes his film scores as "creations," because he says his music is not classical music nor is it traditional movie music. It is something in between. He learned this approach by composing the scores for Kieslowski's films.
It is fitting then that Requiem for a Friend, Preisner's first large-scale work written for performance, is dedicated to the memory of Kieslowski. The idea for Requiem was born when Kieslowski consulted with Preisner about staging a series of classical-style concerts that had more life and theatrics to them than traditional concerts, but the director died before anything could be done. Wanting to "give something special for my friend," Preisner composed the first part of Requiem in three nights shortly after Kieslowski died. The first part was conceived especially for Kieslowski, while the remainder was inspired by the love, respect, and admiration that Kieslowski, Preisner, and Decalogue screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz had for each other. In discussing Requiem for a Friend, Preisner reflected, "I don't know how it is in your life, but in mine there were very few people that I really wanted to spend time with. One of them was Krzysztof Kieslowski...."