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Listening to the Stars Listening to the Stars
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Listening to the Stars

An Interview with Grażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil
Jan Pelczar
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time 14 minutes
Jan Pelczar:
A journalist from Radio RAM. Author of the book 'Lecę. Piloci mi to powiedzieli' ('I'm Flying. Pilots Told Me That'). A graduate of the Polish School of Reportage. Associated with 'Przekrój' magazine since forever. In childhood, he flipped through all the editions at his grandparents'. In adulthood, he became addicted to the crossword puzzles of the Kaliber 45 collective and the drawings of Raczkowski.

Grażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil is a composer who describes nature through music and is inspired by travelling: to Iceland, rainforests, Japan…

I meet Grażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil in her home in Oporów in Wrocław. It’s a rainy day. That is the only reason we don’t talk in the garden—her pride and refuge. But, together with her husband Wiktor, she shows me around the garden through the window: there are flowers; there is an arbor. The walnut tree in the middle is unhealthy, but you can sit in its shadow when it’s hot. There are many fruit trees: cherries, plums, apples. There is a pine and a thuja in the front.

Jan Pelczar: What does a forest sound like in a composer’s ears?

Grażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil: It rustles, it creaks, it makes noise. Trees rip. When you focus you can hear the coursing of water, for example in birch trees. A forest has levels: undergrowth, thicket, small trees, canopy. Older and older, broadleaf or coniferous. We have a piece of land in Przemiłów, on a hillside. An aspen tree grows there. Its leaves emit a sound that is like a percussion effect.

Trees sound different?

Just look at an oak leaf, a maple leaf and a pine sprig. All are different—the form, the structure. When you add dynamic movement, wind, each will sound different. Leaves also sound different when they are green and when they are dried-out, in autumn. You just need to listen.

Which ones have the most appeal?

I love birch trees, they give me strength. I like hugging them. They have just cut my beloved birches in Wrocław at the hill called Górka Miłości. They were drying out. It hurts.

Cutting can also inspire.

I was fascinated by tropical forests. In one of the films about the Amazon rainforest, I saw a drastic scene. A 400-year-old tree, jutting out of the forest like some mammoth, dies within several minutes—killed by a chainsaw. In its agony it falls down, moves back up, bumps against lower trees. The way it sounded, I immediately knew I had to write it down and create a musical monument to this tree. That’s how Rainforests for flute and orchestra was created.

How many centuries did it take for

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Jan Pelczar:
A journalist from Radio RAM. Author of the book 'Lecę. Piloci mi to powiedzieli' ('I'm Flying. Pilots Told Me That'). A graduate of the Polish School of Reportage. Associated with 'Przekrój' magazine since forever. In childhood, he flipped through all the editions at his grandparents'. In adulthood, he became addicted to the crossword puzzles of the Kaliber 45 collective and the drawings of Raczkowski.
Translation: Anna Błasiak
Publish date: 13.09.2019

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Jan Błaszczak:
Born in 1987. He works as a program department employee at the Ursynów Cultural Center "Alternatywy." Author of the book "The Dom: New York Bohemia on the Polish Lower East Side," which was published in 2018 in the American series by Wydawnictwo Czarne. He has also published articles in magazines such as "Polityka," "Machina," "Wprost," and "Gazeta Magnetofonowa," and as a reporter, he has collaborated with Program II of Polish Radio.

Jan Błaszczak: Do you remember the Chernobyl disaster?

Hildur Guðnadóttir: I vaguely remember it. I was living in Amsterdam with my parents at the time and I didn’t quite understand what was going on, but I do remember that there was a lot of conversations about the disaster. But there were so many elements to the story that I had no idea about until the series. So, apart from anything else, composing the score for Chernobyl was a really interesting learning process.

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