Customer Reviews

Górecki: Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"); Three Olden Style Pieces

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This disc is truly the best of both worlds: an amazingly cheap (cheap! not merely affordable) classical disc of a fascinating piece of musical magnificently performed. Despite the presence of premium priced versions of this haunting piece of music (as well as at least one other very good bargain version), Antoni Wit directing the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra manages to outshine the competition. I knew two previous versions of this before, the famous Nonesuch with David Zinman and Dawn Upshaw, and the Philips with Joanna Kozlowska undertaking the vocals.

I recommend this version over the alternatives for four reasons. First, the price is unbeatable. Second, I believe the performance is marginally better than its competitors. Third, the remarkable singing of Zofia Kilanowicz. Fourth, unlike some recordings of this symphony, the disc contains not only the symphony itself, but "Three Olden Style Pieces," which while not as interesting as the main piece are not without interest. In short, this disc features the best performance, is offered at the best price, and contains more music than its competitors.

I do want to question the logic behind one of the other reviews. A reviewer from Derbyshire has expressed his belief that this music is somehow intellectually inferior and that its effects can be as harmful as a drug. I'm sure this was meant hyperbolically, but even granting this, this seems to me to indicate some confusion. In fact, the point is confusedly made. He grants that in Ravel (in the Bolero, a piece that I like not only less than most of the rest of Ravel's corpus but far less than the Gorecki) repetition is effective, and also in Beethoven. Why Gorecki's use of repetition is supposed (I emphasize "supposed") to be less effective is not made clear. Is it because the symphony is popular? Personally, I find the symphony haunting. The music strikes the listener with the simplicity of simple folks tunes and simple masses. Yes, it produces a stunning emotional reaction and can be almost mesmerizing. I personally do not see how this is a negative.

Although this is almost without question the most popular symphony of the past few decades, it has been subject to some criticism because it isn't sufficiently "modern." I worked for a couple of years at Symphony Center in Chicago, where the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performs. I was fascinated to hear backstage the intense hatred a significant number of the orchestra members had for the work of most recent composers. Someone like Gorecki, however, they liked. To me it seems like a perfect instance of the musicians themselves knowing that the emperors had no clothes. We have, I believe, at present something of a gap between fans of orchestral music and musicians on the one hand, and composers and composition teachers on the other. Contemporary orchestral compositions have been plummeting in popularity in the period following Stravinsky and other composers of the early twentieth century, and I would argue that the impossibility of enjoying these compositions on more than an intellectual level has been one of their greatest problems. I am not arguing that orchestral music should be anti-intellectual, but it can't be merely intellectual, as too much of it is.

i think gorecki's third was released for the first time back in '92 or so. according to _the economist_, it outsold madonna and stayed at the top of the pop charts for a time unprecendented by any symphonic recording. it should come as no surprise, i suppose, that even the artists of the then-burgeoning u.k. techno scene (such as beaumont hannant and pentatonik) were namechecking or sampling outright the third symphony, and with good reason.

gorecki's third is, to quote one of my old professors, 'heartbreakingly beautiful'. the raw, emotive phrases make the hair stand on end; the grayest windy-city mornings assume redemptively tragic proportions when this is your soundtrack.

i prefer this version to every other that i've heard, including the much-hyped, but kinda flat, nonesuch version with dawn upshaw. i'm uncertain about squishy notions like 'national character', but this presentation, performed by polish citizens, eclipses the exercise-like renditions of their american and british counterparts in depth and power. each movement develops slowly, taking its time and giving the listener an opportunity to find the right headspace. wit or whoever recorded this performance also downplayed the unnecessary french horn lines and gave more attention to the piano - the result is a much more striking and poignant piece.

I only own the one recording, this one from Naxos. So this is not about the comparative merits of one performance over another.

I did note that one previous reviewer found the repetitive nature of the music very... toxic? Unless in my musical unsophistication I have made a mistake, the first movement is a canon. A contrapuntal form most recognizable to us in Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D. Repetition is central to the form, and I found the canon of the first movement as effective emotionally as Barber's Adagio, or Ravel's Pavanne. And the structure, first building up to the voice solo, then building down in reverse. Very solid, very effective use of the form, to my unsophisticated ears.

But the main point for me was the use I was able to put this music to, having recently experienced the death of a family member, with whom I had a difficult relationship.

The connection between mother and son, and the deep suffering that the death of one or the other brings. Not just the words, but also the mood of the music acted at mutiple levels and helped me to access the process of mourning in a way that nothing else had.

First there is the 15th century lamentation of Mary, desiring to suffer instead of her son. Next is a petition to Mary, taken from scratchings on a Gestapo jail cell wall, beginning "Mother, no, do not cry." And then in the third movement, the words of a mother mourning the death of her son... not just dead but also lost. Every stage of the grief process is there, in those few lines of the thrid movement, echoed and paralleled by shifts in key signature and melodic line.

This music works on so many levels that I want to use the word, synergism. An integrated whole. A modern masterpiece. Gorecki displays, in my opinion, intimate knowledge of the subject. Experiential knowledge, expertly presented.

Yes, it is an expression of sadness. But also an expression of progress and resolution. We are not left in despair. The mother of the third movement copes, and moves on. There is healing in this music.

I'd gladly pay $50 to for this recording. Not only do I think it's just as good as the popular Nonesuch recording with Upshaw, I think it's better hands down. Kilanowisz voice is just outstanding for this piece, blending in with the breathtaking harmonies and emotion of the piece rather than sounding like she's performing an opera aria. The Warsaw Symphony orchestra is rich and thick and produces an amazing harmonies and overtones that won't hear on the Nonesuch recording. Kilanowisz voice is up to the power of this full size orchestra from the lowest notes to the highest. Together, they bring Gorecki's symphony to life in a way that will be tough to surpass. A must have for any fan of Gorecki's 3rd!

Having played the Upshaw version enough times to burn a hole in the CD, my sensibilities for this piece have been certainly biased. However, I find Kilanowisz's approach (on Naxos) more powerful in it's natural, non-operatic style. It is the pacing of the orchestra that lets me down in the Naxos recording. The subtle nuances as this music shifts from one theme to the next are done so beautifully on the Elektra release that, for me, the superior direction of the London Sinfonietta outweighs the exquisite singing of Zofia Kilanowicz. Both versions are worth having though and the second movement of the Naxos rendition is perhaps the most transcendental 10 minutes of music I've ever heard. Because I love this symphony so much, I'm sure I'll buy other recordings of it and I can't wait for the opportunity to hear it live.

This is a sensational version of Gorecki's masterpiece, rivalled only for top spot in my music collection by the Kord version of the same piece on Phillips. The sound quality is phenominal. The third movement in particular stands out, there is a delicate and subtle piano touch not present in the other recordings that give it a measured focus. The singing is simply sublime, I cannot understand the popularity of the Dawn Upshaw recording with the superior intonation and diction of the native soprano so readily available on recordings such as this. Uplifting though sombre, thought provoking though repetitive, this is as good as it gets !

This authentic and Polish version is now my favourite. I had lived with the Upshaw rendition for years - and find the video with the composer to be harrowing and effective mainly because of the visuals - but this new version eclipses that old standby. Maybe it has something to do with the authentic pronounciation and inflection of the poems as rendered by a native-born Polish soprano. She is AMAZING! She has a power and projection of voice that is characteristic of Eastern European sopranos in general. The conducting of Antoni Wit is exemplary and the orchestra plays with conviction and passion. The acoustic is broad and deep and adds to the general gloom of Gorecki's magnum opus. The other works on the disc are less interesting for some but have their merits. Buy this disc for the sorrowful symphony and wallow in three long adagios of unsurpassing beauty and poignancy. It is a transcendent work and one that every thinking and sensitive person should have in their intellectual repertoire.Tim Wingate from Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Poland has been always a land of courageous and untamed spirit; stubborn to any single bit of domination. This territory has given sublime artists. Gorecki is one of the last exponents; even he was born just in the final of the WW2.

His famous Third Symphony is widely known all around the world and constituted definitively a mass phenomena, its consecration and full acceptation. Gorecki employed an admirable sense of the musical texture inviting us to imagine an enormous birch's forest with astonishing austerity of means economy in what orchestration concerns. This music suggests me the kaleidoscopic awakening of slept centuries under the history 's carpet. Ancestral sorrows, delirious visions with that contemplative gaze in the mirror 's memory. In this Christmas, it is a magnificent chance to listen it once more.

This is possibly the most idiomatic version recorded until this date. Wit made no concessions of any kind. The reading is marvelous and heartfelt; emotion and epic have been magnificently blended and besides, supported by an inspired ensemble. Zofia Kilanowicz is simply bewitching as Soprano. The Second Movement is perfect.

Go for this spelling recording.

I own several other recordings of the haunting "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", a masterpiece which doesn't need the explanatory "modern" in front of it. Górecki's works have aroused intense criticism from some music critics who feel that modern music must eschew lyricism, cease to be enslaved to the major/minor tonality of the "past", and tread bravely into the waters of atonality, arhythmicality, and a-beauty.

But music is primarily audio rather than intellectual. It is there to be listened to, which means that AT LEAST one of the criteria for music ought to be how it sounds. It's all very well creating an incredibly clever tone row and patting oneself on the back for writing a concerto for a gravedigger's spade, an electric blender and a toilet being flushed, but who is going to listen to such a work, over and over? A hundred years from now, it will probably be rightly regarded as a curiosity rather than anything else.

Górecki has composed some works which are so extraordinary that the listener is spellbound, mesmerised by the almost elegaic quality of it. Is it non-intellectual? By no means! It is a strange point of view which considers intellectual quality to be discerned only as the inverse of listenability.

There are, of course, several recordings of this remarkable work currently available. All of them are good. But this one... well, it's beyond good, because the singer, soprano Zofia Kilanowicz, is so immersed in the words, and immerses the listener so completely into the words, that the heartbreak becomes our own. We feel as never before the terrible pity of it - Mary in front of the cross; the words of the young girl written on the wall; the woman looking for the body of her son fallen in battle. It is no shame to weep in listening to this recording, because the sorrow transcends the personal, although it never becomes LESS than personal. But it reaches out to touch the core of human understanding. This is a lament for all loss, all death, all grief, all injustice. It is simply... heartbreaking... and very, very beautiful.

That a listener is able to come away with a sense of hope as well as intense grief is due to the music, which shimmers and shines in the dark places of the heart.

Other versions of this work, while lovely, do not have the same plangent quality as this. I was surprised that I did not feel more intensely when listening to the Susan Gritton recording of this, as I consider her a superb singer with a wonderfully expressive quality, but strangely she did not quite achieve the colour of tears that the work requires. The Yvonne Kenny recording is lovely, but it's more about sound than meaning. I can feel Yvonne Kenny being careful about making the right sounds - I DON'T feel her twisting my heart with the meaning. The Dawn Upshaw recording is lovely but bland in comparison, as well.

In every respect - the incredibly cheap price, the exquisite orchestral playing, the wonderful singing - this is the version to have.

I listened to the Nonesuch version first; and it was my first hearing of the piece. I was overwhelmed by the emotionalism and stark beauty of the piece, and especially Upshaw's singing.

I read, though, that the Naxos' version was even better, so also sought it out.

I cannot honestly say that one is better than the other, or which soprana is best; both versions are quite simply some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard.

I do give the edge to Naxos for two reasons; the first is obviously the price, and the second is the addition of the "Three Olden Pieces" which act as a perfect postlude to the symphony and function as a "winding down" of the emotion of the main piece.

If you could only have one version I would receommend this, but there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't own both.