Krzysztof Penderecki, who soundtracked Lynch and Kubrick’s work, dies at 86

Krzysztof Penderecki, the Polish composer whose music appeared in work by David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, and more, has died aged 86, the New York Times reports.

The avant-garde composer died in Krakow this weekend following a long illness, according to Andrzej Giza, director of the Ludwig van Beethoven Association, an organisation founded by Penderecki’s wife Elzbieta.

“So sad to hear of the passing of Krzysztof Penderecki,” Lynch wrote on Twitter. “Krzysztof Penderecki was one of the greatest composers of all time.”

During his lifetime, Penderecki composed four operas, eight symphonies, and a variety of orchestral pieces, instrumental concertos, chamber and instrumental works, and more.

His best known works include “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima” and “Symphony No. 3”, and his compositions have been used in many films, often to chilling effect. William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, Inland Empire, and Twin Peaks: The Return all utilised his work.

His influential music later led him to collaborate with Jonny Greenwood, Aphex Twin, and Portishead’s Beth Gibbons in the first half of the 2010s. “What sad news to wake to,” Greenwood wrote on Twitter. “Penderecki was the greatest – a fiercely creative composer, and a gentle, warm-hearted man. My condolences to his family, and to Poland on this huge loss to the musical world.”

Watch the atomic bomb scene from episode eight of Twin Peaks: The Return, soundtracked by “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima”, below.