Obituaries : Andrzej Panufnik; Composer Who Fled Native Poland Over Repression

Andrzej Panufnik, the composer and conductor who left his native Poland in 1954 to protest artistic repression, died at his home in London on Sunday at age 77 of undisclosed causes.

Panufnik was credited with establishing a contemporary Polish style with his concertos and symphonies and at his death had composed 10 symphonies, several chamber works and many choral and vocal pieces.

Many of his works were topical, including his “Sonfonia Votiva,” an artistic reaction to the Solidarity movement in Poland.

Born the son of Poland’s foremost violin maker, he had just graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory and was studying conducting with Felix Weingartner in Vienna when the Nazis overran his country. During World War II he performed in illegal underground concerts in Poland and composed songs in support of the anti-Nazi movements.

After the war he began his conducting career and was appointed director of the Krakow Symphony.

At first he was a favorite of the postwar Communist regime governing Poland and composed an anthem for the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. But he soon tired of the heavy hand of Stalinism, according to his biographers, and fled Poland for London, where he was granted asylum.

Panufnik conducted the symphony orchestra in Birmingham for several years in the late 1950s. He became a British subject in 1961.

Panufnik, who was not widely known in the United States, made his last visit to America in 1990, when he conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of his Symphony No. 10.