Sinfonía de las lamentaciones
Click to viewSymphony No. 3, Op. 36, also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (Polish: Symfonia pieśni żałosnych), is a symphony in three movements composed
by Henryk Górecki in Katowice, Poland, between October and December 1976. The work is indicative of the transition between Górecki's dissonant earlier manner and his more tonal later style.
A solo soprano sings a different Polish text in each of the three movements. 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 mother searching for son killed 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 and separation through war.
Until 1992, Górecki was known only to connoisseurs, primarily as one of several composers responsible for the postwar Polish music renaissance.That year, Elektra-Nonesuch released a recording of the 15-year-old symphony that topped the classical charts in Britain and the United States. It has now sold more than a million copies, vastly exceeding the expected lifetime sales of a typical symphonic recording by a 20th-century composer. This success, however, has failed to generate interest in Górecki's other works.
Symphony No. 3 is constructed around simple harmonies, set in a neo-modal style which makes use of the medieval musical modes, but does not adhere strictly to medieval rules of composition. The symphony is written for solo soprano, four flutes-two players doubling on piccolo-four clarinets, two bassoons, two contrabassoons, four horns, four trombones, harp, piano and strings. Performances typically last about 50 minutes.
The musicologist Adrian Thomas notes that the symphony lacks dissonance outside of modal inflections (that is, occasional use of pitches that fall outside the mode), and that it does not require nonstandard techniques or virtuosic playing. Thomas further observes that "there is no second-hand stylistic referencing, although if predecessors were to be sought they might be found, distantly removed, in the music of composers as varied as Bach, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and even Debussy."Ronald Blum describes the symphony as "mournful, like Mahler, but without the bombast of percussion, horns and choir, just the sorrow of strings and the lone soprano".The work consists of three elegiac movements, each marked Lento to indicate their slow tempi.Strings dominate the musical textures and the music is rarely loud-the dynamics reach fortissimo in only a few bars.
Lento e largo-Tranquillissimo
The nine-minute second movement is for soprano, clarinets, horns, piano and strings, and contains a libretto formed from the prayer to the Virgin Mary inscribed by Blazusiakówna on the cell wall in Zakopane.According to the composer, "I wanted the second movement to be of a highland character, not in the sense of pure folklore, but the climate of Podhale ... I wanted the girl's monologue as if hummed ... on the one hand almost unreal, on the other towering over the orchestra."The movement opens with a folk drone, A--E, and a melodic fragment, E--G♯--F♯, which alternate with sudden plunges to a low B♭--D♭ dyad. Thomas describes the effect as "almost cinematic ... suggest[ing] the bright open air of the mountains". As the soprano begins to sing, her words are supported by the orchestra until she reaches a climaxing top A♭. The movement is resolved when the strings hold a chord without diminuendo for just over two 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.
Second Movement
No, Mother, do not weep,
Most chaste Queen of Heaven
Support me always.
"Zdrowas Mario." (*)
(Prayer inscribed on wall 3 of cell no. 3 in the basement of "Palace," the Gestapo's headquarters in Zakopane; beneath is the signature of Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna, and the words "18 years old, imprisoned since 26 September 1944.")
(*) "Zdrowas Mario" (Ave Maria)-the opening of the Polish prayer to the Holy Mother.
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki - Symphony of Sorrowful Songs/Three Pieces in the Old Style
1. Symphony No. 3 Op. 36 (1976): I. Lento - Sostenuto Tranquillo Ma Cantabile
2. Symphony No. 3 Op. 36 (1976): II. Lento e Largo - Tranquillissimo
3. Symphony No. 3 Op. 36 (1976): III. Lento - Cantabile Semplice
http://rapidshare.com/files/154063752/Henryk.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/154083566/Henryk.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/154095933/Henryk.part3.rar
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