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A potent mix of the avant-garde and the sacred, Krzysztof Penderecki’s critically acclaimed music has been experienced by most people unbeknownst to them, as a chill down the spine while watching films such as The Shining and The Exorcist, writes MICHAEL DERVAN

HOW MANY Krzysztof Pendereckis are there? There’s the Penderecki who, back in 1959, entered three works into a composers’ competition in his native Poland, and won all three prizes. There’s the Penderecki who received international recognition for the startling sounds of his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshimajust a year later. There’s the man who combined the sound world of the musical avant-garde with the sacred text of St Luke’s Gospel to huge emotional effect in his St Luke Passionof 1966.