With the belated success of his Third Symphony ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ Gorecki emerged in the 1990s as a composer of world stature. Between 1988 and 1995 he wrote three string quartets for the Kronos Quartet that are among his most important mature works. String Quartet No. 1 reveals chorale-like themes, so much a feature of his later writing, as well as hectic, dance-like motion, while the Second Quartet’s wider range of expression explicitly evokes Beethoven. Genesis I: Elementi offers a powerful contrast- a string trio from 1962 of uncompromising immediacy. The Tippett Quartet appear regularly at King’s Place, the Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Bridgewater Hall, and perform regularly on BBC Radio 3. They have performed at the BBC Proms and toured Europe, Canada and Mexico. Their broad and diverse repertoire highlights the Tippett Quartet’s unique versatility. Their impressive catalogue of recordings has been released across several labels to universal acclaim and with classical chart-topping success.

Gorecki creates pieces where the flute and the piano can and do speak with one voice. Over time, this narrative also includes soprano and percussion, and the resulting contemplative and elegiac character of the entire programme fits into the 10th anniversary of Gorecki's death and turns the entire album into a kind of a farewell ritual of that outstanding composer. This music is about passing away. In Gorecki's raw sounds, there is a life that slowly fades away with each subsequent step and each subsequent breath. The title goodbye Goodnight touches us with its fragility, but it does not deprive us of hope.

You might remember Polish composer Henryk Górecki's best-known work for voice and orchestra, 1976's Third Symphony ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"). After all, David Zinman's recording for Nonesuch with soprano Dawn Upshaw raced to the top of the classical and pop charts when it was first released in 1992. It might be tempting to understand Górecki by that singular success; in the case of the Second Symphony and Beatus vir, you wouldn't be too far off base. The Symphony No. 2 "Copernican" was written four years before the Third Symphony; Beatus vir was written in 1979. Both works call for voice and orchestra (as well as mixed choir). By the late 1960s, the composer already had settled into a signature aesthetic that many came to know in the Third Symphony: a lone voice floating over a murmuring pulse, thunderous blows of percussion, massive blocks of orchestral chords, and religiously oriented texts. (The Beatus vir text comes from the Psalms; the Second Symphony, following the work's subtitle, uses the astronomer's own words in praise of God, taken from De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.)


For better or worse (depending on your response to the Symphony No. 3), Górecki's compositional language in these two pieces will be quite familiar. If you find Górecki a compelling artistic voice--and I do--then these performances will be a worthy addition to your library, if not quite as emotionally harrowing an experience as Symphony No. 3. The ethnic connections on this Naxos release run deep: Copernicus was Polish, Beatus vir was commissioned by the Polish Pope, John Paul II (when he was still Cardinal of Cracow), and these artists, uniformly first-rate, are Polish as well. Baritone Andrzej Dobber turns between despondency and strength as the psalms call for, and soprano Zofia Kilanowicz has an appealingly warm tone. Antoni Wit has an admirable track record with Naxos, and this recording is another win for him. The sound is excellent: very focused and rich.
--Anastasia Tsioulcas, ClassicsToday.com

The origins of Sanctus Adalbertus Op. 71by Henryk Miko?aj Górecki and the way in which the work was brought to the public are very special. It was written in 1997 to commemorate the millennium of the martyr’s death of Saint Adalbert. It was to have been premiered that year during Pope John Paul II’s pilgrimage to Poland. These plans did not materialize, however, due to the composer’s illness. The autograph score of the oratorio was discovered in the Górecki archives by his son Miko?aj. On November 4, 2015, five years after the composer’s death, Sanctus Adalbertus had its world premiere at the ICE Congress Centre in Kraków, during a gala concert to mark the 70th anniversary of PWM Polish Music Publishers. The composition is often referred to as ‘the big Adalbert’, following ‘the small Adalbert’, the cantata Salve sidus Polonorum Op. 72 (2000), whose material is based on the third movement of Sanctus Adalbertus. In writing Sanctus Adalbertus, Górecki used the Book of Psalms and his own texts, in Polish, Latin and Czech. As the outstanding expert on Górecki Adrian Thomas, observed, the oratorio’s musical material contains “references both to Edward Elgar’s late--Romantic style and to the relic of Polish early music, the medieval chant ‘Bogurodzica’ (Mother of God).” According to Thomas, Sanctus Adalbertus is a natural successor to Beatus vir (1979), Górecki’s psalm for baritone, choir and orchestra. Both are scored for almost identical forces, with a soprano part added to Sanctus Adalbertus. Beatus vir was written in praise of St Stanislaus (Stanis?aw in Polish), the Bishop of Kraków, who died a martyr’s death. The two compositions were part of Górecki’s plan of a cycle of works on Polish saints, which is said to have included also an oratorio devoted to Saint Maksymilian Maria Kolbe, a martyr of Auschwitz.

The Sonata for Two Violins is one of Henryk Gorecki’s earliest acknowledged works- its contrasts, instrumental rivalries and sophisticated technique a worthy rounding-off of his formative period. The Third String Quartet with its evocative subtitle ‘… songs are sung’ represents a culmination of Gorecki’s preoccupations with elaborate and emotive melodic shapes and closely intertwined harmonies, its final minutes recalling the beauty and poignancy of the composer’s Third Symphony. The First and Second String Quartets can be heard on Naxos as well: “a recording deserving of the very highest recommendation.” (Gramophone).

Górecki: Symphony No. 3 - 3 Olden Style Pieces

GÓRECKI Beatus Vir 1,5,6. Symphonies Nos. 2 1,2,5,6 and 3 2,6. 3 Olden Style Pieces 6. Little Requiem for a Certain Polka. 3,7 Concerto-Cantata. 3,4,7 Harpsichord Concerto 3,7. 3 Dances, op. 34 7 • Antoni Wit, cond; 1 Andrzej Dobber (bar); 2 Zofia Kilanowicz (s); 3 Anna Górecka (pn); 4 Carol Wincenc (fl); 5 Polish Radio Ch; 5 Silesian P Ch; 6 Polish Natl RSO; 7 Warsaw PO • NAXOS 8.503268 (3 CDs: 202:48)


This is a new boxed set repackaging three previously single discs issued by Naxos between 1994 (Symphony No. 3) and 2011 (the concertos and Dances). All, of course, are still available singly, but it’s nice to have them all here in one set.


For musicians and serious collectors, Wit’s performance of the famous Symphony No. 3 has always been the one to acquire, not the much more glib, slick performance by David Zinman on Nonesuch. Wit is a conductor who penetrates the heart of every work he performs; I’m convinced that it is only because he operates mostly in his native Poland that he is not better appreciated as one of the five or six greatest living conductors. Everything I’ve heard by him is at the very least thoughtful and emotionally intense, and most of it the equal or superior of any other versions. Moreover, he has, by and large, very good taste in selecting singers for those symphonies and cantatas that require them, and this, too, enhances his reputation for me.


Although most of the music is religious in nature, it is so well written and so emotionally engaging that one does not need to subscribe to Górecki’s belief system in order to appreciate these works. Beatus Vir, for instance, was dedicated to Pope John Paul II, who was also from Poland, the world premiere in June 1979 being conducted by the composer himself. Those familiar with the personality of this late, great Pope will understand how much this work meant to him, as the quotations Górecki used from the Psalms accurately reflect John Paul II’s personal beliefs and feelings. Baritone Dobber’s dark, bronze timbre and heartfelt singing bring out the inner feelings of the music, and Wit’s conducting supports him every step of the way.


The Second Symphony was written to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Copernicus in 1973. As the notes indicate, this particular work was a summary of Górecki’s previous compositional style, which had been much more atonal with a lot of tone clusters à la Penderecki or Ligeti. This “in between” Symphony uses great blocks of sound in the beginning but ends with a four-part chorus “expressing man’s delight in the beauty and order of God’s creation, using Copernicus’s own words from De revolutionibus orbium. ” The first movement is the closest to Penderecki, with almost grating orchestral textures (including a group of trombones playing together a semitone apart and sounding like a group of angry bees and, later on, a wordless chorus singing along with winds and brass), possibly representing the initial chaos of the Universe. Things quiet down as the soprano enters, singing a text in Latin about the creation of the heavens and the earth. The Symphony ends quietly, with peace and order restored. Górecki is now in the later phase of his compositional style.


I won’t retread the Third Symphony because it is so familiar to listeners, but this is, as I said, its best recording. In the third disc, recorded in 2011, we start out with the Little Requiem for a Certain Polka, initially a soft mood piece with gently interspersed piano along with a very high solo violin. The next two movements, quite busy and loud, feature insistent ostinato rhythms, the second featuring trombones prominently along with the piano and the third played mostly by high winds while the piano plays a marcato bass line. We are fortunate here to have Górecki’s daughter, Anna, to play the piano part. The ringing of a Requiem bell and a soft string melody reminiscent of the opening of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture start out the quiet last movement. The Concerto-Cantata, a first recording, was composed a year before the Little Requiem (1992) and features, yet again, quiet, slow-moving passages at the outset, which are then interrupted by occasional loud string passages. But since this work was written for flute and orchestra, most of the music is lyrical. Flautist Wincenc gave the world premiere of this piece with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in 1992, and here reprises her role. The solemn, shifting moods that one is familiar with in late Górecki are exploited to the full in this unusual work, and for the most part his style now is tonal and the overall ambience somber.


This performance of the 1980 Harpsichord Concerto is in a version adapted for piano and again played by Górecka. I would have wished that she could have learned the part on the harpsichord for the simple reason that I feel its lighter, brighter timbre suits the music better, but it is a good performance. The music is in some ways typical of late Górecki with its simple, almost minimalist harmonies and ostinato rhythms. The Three Dances, which date from the same year as the Second Symphony (1973), are already in Górecki’s later style, meaning simpler in terms of both theme and gesture and headed in the direction of defined tonality.


I enjoyed all three discs although, perhaps, the third is less essential listening than the first two. If you wish to acquire those two discs singly, their numbers are 8.555375 (Symphony 2 and Beatus Vir ) and 8.550822 (Symphony No. 3).


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley