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How Jonny Greenwood was Influenced by Penderecki

Listening In

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Jonny Greenwood is best know as the lead guitarist and keyboardist in Radiohead. But, increasingly, he is becoming know for both his stand-alone concert and film music, which are full of sounds drawn from his fascination with the work of the late Polish composer, Krzysztof Penderecki. In this video, I look at the sounds in Radiohead songs that can be directly linked back to the first time Greenwood hear Penderecki's music in college and I also look in depth at Jonny Greenwood's own concert work.

Watch David Bennett's video on Karma Police: Is Karma Police in E minor or A minor?

Radiohead's Masterpiece in Orchestration: Radiohead's Masterpiece in Orchestration
Radiohead: Pyramid Song - Analysis: Radiohead: Pyramid Song - Analysis

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FURTHER READING/RESEARCH
Timbral Aspects of Orchestration [Mathias Langfeldt]: https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/5...
Jonny Greenwood Scores the Western: Music as Generic Subversion in There Will Be Blood: https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/handl...

FURTHER WATCHING
Jonny Greenwood & Krzysztof Penderecki - Talk about their collaboration: Video
Paths Through The Labyrinth, a portrait of Krzysztof Penderecki: https://www.medici.tv/en/documentarie...
How Jonny saved the Ondes Martenot [David Bruce]: How the Ondes Martenot did not Disappear C...

FURTHER LISTENING
Jonny Greenwood - Popcorn Superhet Receiver/48 Responses to Polymorphia: https://open.spotify.com/album/4DMWDL...
Jonny Greenwood - Smear: Jonny Greenwood - Smear

0:00 Introduction - Greenwood and Penderecki
2:15 Greenwood and Radiohead
5:29 Greenwood's concert works
7:51 Popcorn Superhet Receiver
12:12 Bringing it all together

20 Comments

@ListeningIn Creator 5 years ago (edited) Pinned

This video was made in collaboration with David Bennett Piano! Take a look at David's video analysing Radiohead's 'Karma Police' here: https://youtu.be/IgjmSoSmaoc

@DavidBennettPiano 5 years ago

Great video! It was lovely to work with you!

@gpeddino 5 years ago (edited)

Radiohead's "A Moon Shaped Pool" (2016) really saw Jonny flexing those string arrangements. The ending of "Ful Stop" features glissandi that are almost identical to a passage from "Polymorphia". "Tinker Tailor..." is pure Messiaen with those ondes guiding the orchestra. And "Burn The Witch" features violins played with guitar plectrums (a technique Jonny also used in "Popcorn Superhet Receiver", a decade earlier).

@marshallgrey2159 5 years ago

turns out I'm more of a Johnny Greenwood fan than a radiohead

@jf3349 3 years ago

2 years later after this video, "Bending Hectic" by The Smile (5:41) has a bridge clearly referencing the same influences Greenwood had by Penderecki.

@bigmassivee 4 years ago

The reason Jonny is so introverted and quiet is because all of his personality and soul goes into his arrangements

@Oliver-lt7ye 3 years ago

Im just realizing that Greenwood essentially groomed me into being a Penderecki fan through radiohead

@OcatvioMeidna 4 years ago

THIS VIDEO IS GOLD.

@darthcoward 5 years ago

I always loved Weird Fishes / Arpeggi because it turned the "boring" arpeggios I used to practice on the piano into something vibrant and textured, no wonder why!

@frederickthornelives 4 years ago

There Will be Blood changed my life.

@chrisrussell5498 5 years ago

Awsome. Johnny is most definitely genius. I love his almost childlike curiosity.

@steadyrhythms9571 5 years ago

penderecki was such a great composer. threnody for the victims of Hiroshima was a life changing listen.

@dc78 5 years ago

I cant believe the production quality and the depth of analysis that comes from your channel. the amount of time, effort and care for the craft is so deeply appreciated. thank you for the work that you do

@deathchips926 4 years ago

Hmm, I always thought the dissonant drone in How To Disappear was inspired by Scott Walker's "It's Raining Today". Interesting!

@TheHeavylord666 5 years ago

Pretty surprised you didn't mention Burn the Witch from AMSP! I think you can hear Penderecki's influence on this song quite well.
Amazing video!

@ExileOnDaytonStreet 5 years ago (edited)

The polyrhythm and and overlapping harmonies in Weird Fishes are certainly appreciated (it's one of Radiohead's most popular songs, I believe), but I don't know that we really state explicitly enough how cool it is that something as simple as having those two arpeggiated sequences played in different times (triplets vs. quarter notes) creates such a fluid sound. As if the driving harmony behind the song is bouncing around on the waves of the ocean.

It's a concept the band explored further in the looped samples of Bloom (especially in that orchestral arrangement they did for BBC, but also comes to the forefront on all sorts of live takes of the song, like Thom's solo piano version we can find on youtube), and its absolutely fascinating. It puts me in a trance not unlike some shoegazing kind of music, but with a more natural, organic feel.

But then on Weird Fishes, Jonny does that absolutely bonkers looped-and-played-backwards solo in the coda... and oh wow, I can only imagine how someone comes up with that part. It's genius.