Henryk Gorecki, Composer Of 'Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs,' Dies At Age 76

by Thomas Huizenga

Polish composer Henryk Gorecki died today at age 76. The news was announced this morning by the Polish National Radio Symphony. Gorecki was little known outside Poland until a 1992 recording of his Symphony No. 3, subtitled the "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," shot up the charts, eventually selling well over a million copies, and was heard on radio stations around the world.
Photo: Gerry Hurkmans. Henryk Gorecki never had another success as huge as his haunting "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs."

The symphony, which Gorecki wrote in 1976, is centered on three texts — including a prayer inscribed by a teenager on a cell wall of a Gestapo headquarters — which the composer turned into haunting laments, backed by simple, slowly churning surges of beautiful music. But in 1976, such music was frowned upon by academics, and the symphony, as Gorecki recalled through an interpreter in a 1995 NPR interview, received a cool reception.

Someone who warmed to the symphony immediately was Tim Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author, who at the time hosted a radio show on WNYC in New York and championed an early, Polish recording of the symphony. "I think that people are moved by the simplicity — which does not mean simple-mindedness — and the prayerful intensity of the music," Page says. "Quite extraordinary. The Symphony No. 3 touched people in a way that few pieces do, now or ever."

One person who was very moved by Gorecki's third symphony was a 14-year old girl from Sweden — a burn victim who wrote a letter to the composer, telling him that his music was the only thing that kept her alive. Gorecki reads from the letter in his interview.

Complete on  >>  http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2010/11/12/131272415/henryk-gorecki-composer-of-symphony-of-sorrowful-songs-dies-at-age-76?ft=1&f=1039