Zbigniew Preisner

Zbigniew Preisner (born May 20, 1955) is Poland's leading film score composer, best known for his work for the director Krzysztof Kieslowski.

Preisner was born in Bielsko-Biala, Poland. He studied history and philosophy at Krakow, and never received formal lessons in music, instead teaching himself by copying down parts from records.

His music for Kieslowski, which is his best known work, is sometimes credited to a Dutch composer by the name of Van den Budenmayer. This is a pseudonym for Preisner himself, however.

Although Preisner is most closely associated with Kieslowski, he has written for other directors, winning a César in 1996 for his work on Jean Becker[?]'s Elisa. He has won a number of other awards, including another César in 1994 for Three Colors: Red, and the Silver Bear from the Berlin Film Festival in 1997 for The Island on Bird Street[?].

Joni Mitchell's symphonic-rock CD "Travelogue," released in 2002, includes a version of Preisner's "Song For The Unification of Europe" written for the motion picture Three Colors: Blue."

In 1998, Requiem for My Friend, Preisner's first large scale work not written for film, was premiered. It was originally intended as a narrative work to be written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz[?] and directed by Kieslowski, but after Kieslowski's death, it instead became a sort of memorial to him.

Preisner's style is basically Romantic, with Jean Sibelius being an acknowledged influence.

External link

• Home page (http://www.preisner.com/)