Symphony No. 3 , also known as the Symphony of Sad Songs or the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs ( Polish Symfonia pieśni żałosnych ) Or. 36 - the most popular of the works of the Polish composer Henrik Gurecki . The penultimate symphony of the composer. It was created in October-December 1976 in Katowice and is dedicated to the wife of the composer Jadwig Rurana. The average playing time is 55 minutes.
The symphony is written for solo soprano and orchestra.
The text of the first part was Lamentation of the Virgin Mary (text of the 15th century ) from ентwiętokrzyski Monastery (Monastery of the Holy Cross in ентwiętokrzyskie Mountains ), in which the Virgin Mary addresses the Son dying on the cross, trying to alleviate His suffering. The second part is written in the words scratched by the 18-year-old Helena Wanda Blazusyak from the Polish Tatras on the wall of the Gestapo prison in Zakopane and addressed to the mother and the Virgin Mary (“Oh mother, don’t cry, don’t. Queen of Heaven, always be my support ") [1] . The third part is based on the folk song “Where have you gone, my dear son?” ( Polish Kajże się podzioł mój synocek miły? ), Recorded in Silesia by the folklorist Adolf Dygac .
The first performance of the symphony took place on April 4, 1977 at the Festival of Contemporary Art in Royan , the Orchestra of the South-West Radio of Germany was conducted by Ernest Boer , the soprano part was performed by Stefanie Voitovich (a year later the same performers also performed the first recording). Criticism met a symphony, which marked Guretsky's departure from his earlier, aesthetically more radical works, with unanimous disapproval.
In 1993, the recording of the Third Guretsky Symphony with the participation of the famous singer Don Upshaw performed by the London Symphonytta orchestra conducted by David Zinman won the first place in the Gramophone magazine classical music charts and was in the top ten best-selling records in the world (sixth place) [ 2] . Since then, Guretsky's symphony has become one of the most popular symphonies of the second half of the 20th century . Among her many recordings are also the work of such conductors as Anthony Vit , Kazimierz Kord , Yuri Simonov , Anton Nanut .
Links to other areas of music
In 1996, the musical group Lamb (Great Britain) made a composition based on music and the text of Guretsky’s Third Symphony. In 2014, Beth Gibbons performed as a soloist in a concert recording of the symphony with the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra (conductor Krzysztof Penderetsky ), the recording was released in 2019 [3] .
Guretsky's symphony sounds in the films of Maurice Pial “ The Police ”, Peter Weir “ Fearless ”, Julian Schnabel “ Basquiat ”, Paolo Sorrentino “ Great Beauty ”.
Notes
- ↑ Henryk Gorecki // The New York Times , February 27, 1994.
- ↑ Dmitry Ukhov. "Symphony of sorrowful chants" topped the list of hits
- ↑ Beth Gibbons of Portishead Learned to Sing in Polish. So I Did, Too // The New York Times , March 29, 2019.