Krzysztof Penderecki, Poland’s greatest composer at the time of death earlier today, was 86.

He was born in Dębica in south-east Poland and studied in Kraków where he graduated from the Academy of Music. He continued at the Academy as a professor before his composing career took off. He received early acclaim for his Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960) and his large-scale St Luke Passion (1963-66). During the 1960s, he won numerous composition prizes, including the Sibelius Gold Medal (1967), the Prix Italia (1968 – for Dies irae) and the Award of the Polish Composer's Association (1970).

The year 1973 saw the premiere, in Peterborough, of his First Symphony and the start of a professorship at Yale University which ran until 1978. During the 1970s, his compositional language changed – less connected with the earlier influences of Webern and Boulez, and increasingly tonal with a focus on specific intervals. His Second Symphony, Christmas (1980), is a fine example of his newer style.

His Polish Requiem, which used an earlier work, Lacrimosa, commissioned by Solidarity to commemorate those killed in the anti-government riots in the Gdansk shipyards in 1970, made a great impact. It was a work he returned to twice, to revise. His Credo of 1997-8 is one of his most popular later works, alongside the Second Cello Concerto (1982), written for Mstislav Rostropovich.

His output was substantial numbering eight symphonies, four operas, a large number of concertante works (his two violin concertos were written, respectively, for Isaac Stern and Anne-Sophie Mutter), vocal and choral works, and chamber music, including four string quartets.

He was active conductor, recording many of his own works.