Composer Details

Zbiniew Preisner

Zbigniew Preisner is Poland’s leading film music composer. For many years he enjoyed a close collaboration with the director Krzysztof Kieslowski and his script-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz; his scores for Kieslowski’s films Dekalog, The Double Life of Veronique, Three Colours: Blue, Three Colours: White and Three Colours: Red have brought him international acclaim and many commissions for film and television scores. His music has a kind of purity and timelessness which moves people: huge chord sequences or tunes as simple and attractive as nursery rhymes. Outside film, he has worked on orchestrations for Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and he wrote Requiem for my friend in memory of Kieslowski which was released by Warners and became an international best-seller.

‘A composition has to come along and make something of what's been written in a literary language. But how can you describe music? That it's beautiful, for example, sublime? That it's memorable? That it's mysterious? You can write all this down but the composer's got to come along and find the notes. Then the musicians have to play all these notes. And all this, in the end, has to remind you of what was written down in literary language. And Zbigniew Preisner simply does it wonderfully.’ Krzysztof Kieslowski.

 Here is the latest example of Zbigniew's work in advertising: