Symphony No.3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" - Henryk Górecki

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Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit. Zofia Kilanowicz as the soprano.

I - Lento. Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile (♩ = 50-2) - Tempo, ma tranquillissimo, cantabillissimo, dolcissimo (♩ = 58-60) - Doloroso - Appassionato - Affetuoso - Poco più lento, lamentoso - Doloroso - Lento. Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile (♩ = 50-2): 0:00
II - Lento e largo (♩ = 44). Tranquillissimo, cantabillissimo, dolcissimo, legatissimo - Poco più mosso ma ben tenuto (♩ = 58-60) - Poco meno - Molto lento (♩ = 40): 27:10
III - Lento. Cantabile semplice (♩ = 50) - Lento e largo, ben tenuto (♩ = 46) - Lo stesso tempo ma tranquillissimo, cantabillissimo, dolcissimo (♩ = 46) - Molto lento (♩ = 44) - Largo ben tenuto: 37:25

Górecki's Symphony No.3 was composed between October and December 1976, commissioned from the Southwest German Radio, Baden-Baden. It was premiered on April 4 of 1977 at the Royan International Festival, performed by the SWR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ernest Bour, along Stefania Woytowicz as the soprano. The work is written in three slow movements, scored for orchestra and soprano on poems of sorrowful nature.

The first is a 15th-century Polish lament of Mary, mother of Jesus. The second a message written on the wall of a Gestapo cell during World War II; and the third a Silesian folk song of a mother searching for her son killed by the Germans in the Silesian uprisings. The first and third movements are written from the perspective of a parent who has lost a child, and the second movement from that of a child separated from a parent. The dominant themes of the symphony are motherhood, despair and suffering.

The symphony caused controversy in its first performance, as Górecki had abandoned the avant-garde style in which he had begun in favour of a more minimalist, consonant style. A 1991 recording with the London Sinfonietta, conducted by David Zinman and featuring the soloist Dawn Upshaw, was released in 1992 by the Elektra imprint Nonesuch Records. Within two years, it sold more than 700,000 copies worldwide. The work became a "hit" like almost no contemporary piece of classical music has ever been. Górecki's "Sorrowful" Symphony touched a more universal nerve and spoke to a broader audience than virtually any other classical work of its time.

The first movement begins with a slow, deliberative canon, the theme of which is adapted from an old Polish folksong. It gradually builds, starting with the double basses and mounting in pitch and intensity, as each part enters in imitation. 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....". The text is taken from the Songs of the Lysagóra, a sacred collection dating from the fifteenth century. After this the canon resumes, descending, as before it had risen, in both pitch and intensity, slowly unwinding to end with the single melodic line, the cantus firmus with which the movement had begun.

The second movement offers an immediate contrast to the sombre elegiac tone of the first. The words of the song are nonetheless tragic, a prayer scratched on the wall of a Gestapo cell by an eighteen-year-old Polish girl seeking the protection of the Queen of Heaven: "Little mother, do not weep, Purest Queen of Heaven, pray, do not abandon me, Hail Mary". The melodic line, with its accompaniment of clustered sonorities, is sad but lyrical in its gentle beauty, touching the heart of the listener in part because of its textual and historical source, to which the music adds even greater poignancy. The movement is resolved when the strings hold a chord without diminuendo for nearly one and a half minutes. The final words of the movement are the first two lines of the Polish Ave Maria, sung twice on a repeated pitch by the soprano.

The third movement is constructed as a set of variations. It begins with a repeated motif with its folksong in which a mother laments the loss of her son, whose body she now seeks. The insistent ostinato of the orchestra pointing a melodic line of the greatest simplicity. The following variations are simple yet expressive, built on mostly uplifting harmonies despite the sorrowful text. The symphony ends with an expression of hope, allowing the boy, killed by cruel enemies, to rest in peace, lulled by God's song-birds and surrounded by the flowers of God: "O sing for him, God's little song-birds, Since his mother cannot find him. And you, God's little flowers, May you blossom all around, that my son may sleep a happy sleep."

[Activate the subtitles to see the lyrics]

Picture: "Motherhood" (1905) by the Polish artist Stanisław Wyspiański.

Sources: https://bit.ly/3Gf0rS9, https://bit.ly/3MeOeR8 and https://bit.ly/3Zxlmqk

To check the score: https://bit.ly/3MbYJ7B