Desert Island Discs no. 4

Hello everyone!
Welcome to number 4 of my Desert Island Discs. I said this week I'd do something a bit different and I think I'm going to achieve it this week, sort ot. It's not completely out of the norm, but it's certainly not mainstream. So this week, it's the Lento E Largo, Tranquillissimo from - Symphony No. 3, Op. 36 (“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”) by Henryk Górecki.

So, just to tell you a bit about the composer. Górecki was a Polish born composer who died quite recently in November 2010. In his early career he composed Serialist music during the 1950s and 60s, influenced by Webern (one of the composers of the 2nd Viennese School), Stockhausen, Penderecki and Serocki. and his music was characterised by dissonant modernism from these influences.
However, during the 1970s, he started to move towards sacred minimalism which is exemplified in this piece. His Symphony no. 3, from whihch this piece is from is his most popular and was composed in memory of those who died in the Holocaust, which really comes across in the piece.


The piece itself is one of the most heart-breaking pieces I have ever heard, it makes me cry. (Sorry, another heartbreaking song). I think in light of what its attributed to, the melody and harmony bring it across perfectly and having the idea of the Holocaust in the back of your mind really makes you feel overwhelmed emotionally. The harmonies are simple and make use of Medieval modes which I think is absolutely beautiful, because I love tonal ambiguity. It's a very mournful piece, full of bereavement, but it's very sublte to bring this across. It doesn't include huge great crashes of percussion to heighten the emotion which I like about this piece, because it almost touches your emotions in a way that allows you to be overwhelmed in your own way, rather than someone obviously trying to drum it in to you. I do love the emotional works, for instance by Beethoven, but I think for this occassion, in light of the Holocaust, it's not something you can generalise.

The beginning of the piece is so beautiful. It opens with a folk drone of A-E, and a melodic fragment of E-G#-F# which sounds like you're at the top of a mountain. Gorecki said that '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 girl he referring to is 18-year-old Helena Wanda Błażusiakówna, who was a highland woman who left an inscription on the wall of her prison cell in a Gestapo prison at the foot of the Tatra mountains in Southern Poland, and she only thinks of her mother, which is what Górecki was fascinated by.

Although this piece is incredible sad, it is absolutely beautiful and is most definately worth listening to. It's a very thoughtful piece. I would love to take this piece to a desert island, although, not without a remedy to pick me up again afterwards.

I hope you love the piece as much as I do. I really is an incredible piece, particu/arly with its ability to bring out such emotion. Net time, I will do something cheery! And perhaps a little faster! Thankyou for reading! :)

Love Alice xxx