Published on Nov 30, 2013
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (1933-2010). Symphony Nº 3, Op. 36, "The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", 1976.
Video Performance and Documentary: http://youtu.be/dp7ij5bChGo
Performer: Dawn Upshaw. London Sinfonietta Orchestra, Conducted by David Zinman. Nonesuch Label, 1992
Symphony Nº.3, "The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs":
00:00 I. Lento - Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile
26:44 II. Lento e Largo - Tranquillissimo - Cantabillissimo - Dolcissimo legatissimo
36:30 III. Lento - Cantabile semplice
One of the most devastating pieces of music composed. Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 is a powerful, prayer-like setting of instrumental and vocal music. While considered a modern composer, the work is firmly rooted in the tonal world, often creating a mantra/meditative feel. The 1976 composition is as emotional today, as it was in its own time.
Henryk Górecki has established himself as one of the most well-known composers of the late twentieth century, with a musical style whose poignancy and accessibility found a broad and diverse audience. His worldwide recognition was rather slow in coming, however, and although his orchestral and chamber works from the 1960s and 1970s found favor with audiences in Poland and some critics abroad, it was the Third that eventually catapulted Górecki into the classical music spotlight. The Symphony No. 3, subtitled "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," is scored for orchestra with soprano soloist and is cast in three somber movements. The first and longest movement, marked Lento, sonstenuto tranquillo ma cantabile, begins with a slow, deliberative canon, the theme of which is adapted from an old Polish folk song. At its apex, the canon is interrupted by a soprano soloist singing a fervent lament for Jesus in the voice of Mary: "My chosen and lovely son, share with your mother all your wounds...." Her text is taken from the Songs of the Lysagóra, a sacred collection dating from the fifteenth century. In the shorter but equally powerful second movement, a spare harmonic background casts a shadowy pall over the heartwrenching maternal words that were found scrawled on the wall of a Gestapo prison by an 18-year-old female inmate. The tone here turns religious, as well: "Little mother, do not weep, Purest Queen of Heaven, pray, do not abandon me, Hail Mary." The third movement, constructed as a set of variations, once again visits the theme of a mother mourning for her son; its text and theme were derived from Polish folk song. Despite the Third's intense expressivity and uncluttered musical language, its fame cannot be attributed to its style alone - and in fact, Górecki remained a relatively obscure figure to American audiences for some time after its composition, while three separate recordings of the piece enjoyed only average sales. However, in a happy convergence of musical style, shrewd marketing, and shifting public tastes, the 1992 recording of the work, featuring Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta, became an overnight hit and climbed up the classical as well as popular charts and sold over a million copies. Górecki's "Sorrowful" Symphony touched a more universal nerve and spoke to a broader audience than virtually any other classical work of its time.
His name remained largely unknown outside Poland until the mid-to late 1980s, and his fame arrived in the 1990s. In 1992, 15 years after it was composed, a recording of his Third Symphony, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs - recorded with soprano Dawn Upshaw and released to commemorate the memory of those lost during the Holocaust - became a worldwide commercial and critical success, selling more than a million copies and vastly exceeding the typical lifetime sales of a recording of symphonic music by a 20th-century composer. As surprised as anyone at its popularity, Górecki said, "Perhaps people find something they need in this piece of music [...] somehow I hit the right note, something they were missing. Something somewhere had been lost to them. I feel that I instinctively knew what they needed."This popular acclaim did not generate wide interest in Górecki's other works, and he pointedly resisted the temptation to repeat earlier success, or compose for commercial reward.
Apart from two brief periods studying in Paris and a short time living in Berlin, Górecki spent most of his life in southern Poland.
Video Performance and Documentary: http://youtu.be/dp7ij5bChGo
Performer: Dawn Upshaw. London Sinfonietta Orchestra, Conducted by David Zinman. Nonesuch Label, 1992
Symphony Nº.3, "The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs":
00:00 I. Lento - Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile
26:44 II. Lento e Largo - Tranquillissimo - Cantabillissimo - Dolcissimo legatissimo
36:30 III. Lento - Cantabile semplice
One of the most devastating pieces of music composed. Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 is a powerful, prayer-like setting of instrumental and vocal music. While considered a modern composer, the work is firmly rooted in the tonal world, often creating a mantra/meditative feel. The 1976 composition is as emotional today, as it was in its own time.
Henryk Górecki has established himself as one of the most well-known composers of the late twentieth century, with a musical style whose poignancy and accessibility found a broad and diverse audience. His worldwide recognition was rather slow in coming, however, and although his orchestral and chamber works from the 1960s and 1970s found favor with audiences in Poland and some critics abroad, it was the Third that eventually catapulted Górecki into the classical music spotlight. The Symphony No. 3, subtitled "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," is scored for orchestra with soprano soloist and is cast in three somber movements. The first and longest movement, marked Lento, sonstenuto tranquillo ma cantabile, begins with a slow, deliberative canon, the theme of which is adapted from an old Polish folk song. At its apex, the canon is interrupted by a soprano soloist singing a fervent lament for Jesus in the voice of Mary: "My chosen and lovely son, share with your mother all your wounds...." Her text is taken from the Songs of the Lysagóra, a sacred collection dating from the fifteenth century. In the shorter but equally powerful second movement, a spare harmonic background casts a shadowy pall over the heartwrenching maternal words that were found scrawled on the wall of a Gestapo prison by an 18-year-old female inmate. The tone here turns religious, as well: "Little mother, do not weep, Purest Queen of Heaven, pray, do not abandon me, Hail Mary." The third movement, constructed as a set of variations, once again visits the theme of a mother mourning for her son; its text and theme were derived from Polish folk song. Despite the Third's intense expressivity and uncluttered musical language, its fame cannot be attributed to its style alone - and in fact, Górecki remained a relatively obscure figure to American audiences for some time after its composition, while three separate recordings of the piece enjoyed only average sales. However, in a happy convergence of musical style, shrewd marketing, and shifting public tastes, the 1992 recording of the work, featuring Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta, became an overnight hit and climbed up the classical as well as popular charts and sold over a million copies. Górecki's "Sorrowful" Symphony touched a more universal nerve and spoke to a broader audience than virtually any other classical work of its time.
His name remained largely unknown outside Poland until the mid-to late 1980s, and his fame arrived in the 1990s. In 1992, 15 years after it was composed, a recording of his Third Symphony, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs - recorded with soprano Dawn Upshaw and released to commemorate the memory of those lost during the Holocaust - became a worldwide commercial and critical success, selling more than a million copies and vastly exceeding the typical lifetime sales of a recording of symphonic music by a 20th-century composer. As surprised as anyone at its popularity, Górecki said, "Perhaps people find something they need in this piece of music [...] somehow I hit the right note, something they were missing. Something somewhere had been lost to them. I feel that I instinctively knew what they needed."This popular acclaim did not generate wide interest in Górecki's other works, and he pointedly resisted the temptation to repeat earlier success, or compose for commercial reward.
Apart from two brief periods studying in Paris and a short time living in Berlin, Górecki spent most of his life in southern Poland.
