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Was born in Czernica, near Rybnik in Silesia, in 1933.
He studied composition with Boles1aw Szabelski at the State Higher School
of Music in Katowice. He is one of the most original voices in
contemporary music. He works first made their mark in the mid-1950s when
he found himself at the forefront of the Polish avant-garde at the time of
the post-Stalin cultural thaw. His early pieces show a clear development
from the folk-influenced worlds of Szymanowski and Bartók in the Four
Preludes for piano (1955) and Songs of Joy and Rhythm (1956) to the
modernist techniques of Webern and Boulez in Epitaph (1958) and Symphony
No. 1(1959). During the 1960s he continued in a radical direction in the
Genesis (196263) and Muzyczka (La Musiquette) I, II and III for various
instrumental line-ups (196770; Muzyczka IV dates from 1971). At the same
time Górecki pared down his compositional material and explored the folk
music traditions in such works as Three Pieces in Old Style (1963) and Old
Polish Music (196769).
The simple yet monumental style for which Górecki is today renowned
became fully established in the 1970s with such works as Symphony No. 2
OCopernican1 (1972), Symphony No. 3 OSymphony of Sorrowful Songs1 (1976)
as well as the Psalm setting Beatus vir (performed in Kraków to mark Pope
John Paul II1s visit to Poland in 1979).
In the early 1980s, following the imposition of martial law in Poland, Górecki
withdrew from public life and concentrated on choral settings and chamber
music (Recitativa e ariosa OLerchenmusik1, 198485). In the second half
of the decade, as a result of Poland1s increasing political emancipation,
Górecki1s music attracted new performers and audiences in the West. This
renewed interest led to the composition of two string quartets, Already it
is Dusk (1988) and Quasi una fantasia (1991, both commissioned by the
Kronos Quartet). Górecki1s music is performed throughout the world at
subscription concerts, concerts devoted exclusively to his works and at
prestigious festivals. Many choreographies have been devised to his music.
A series of new recordings on the Nonesuch label proved a great success.
Górecki1s most noted recent compositions include Concerto-Cantata for
flute and orchestra (1992) and Kleines Requiem fur eine Polka (1993),
recorded by both the Schoenberg Ensemble on Philips and the London
Sinfonietta on Nonesuch. Over the last six years Górecki has completed
two new choral works, Salve, Sidus Polonorum (19972000) for chorus,
percussion and keyboards, and Lobgesang (2000) for chorus and glockenspiel.
In March 2003 the Kurpie Songs for a cappella choir was premiered in
Warsaw. The Kronos Quartet is soon to give the first performance of Górecki1s
Third String Quartet.
Górecki1s has received numerous honorary doctorates, including those from
the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw (1993), Warsaw University
(1994), the Catholic University in Washington, the University of Michigan
in Ann Arbor, Victoria University in Victoria, Canada, and the University
of British Columbia in Montreal.
Selected works: Songs of Joy and Rhythm for two pianos
and orchestra (1956/60), Sonata for Two Violins (1957), Concerto for Five
Instruments and String Quartet (1957), Epitaph for mixed choir and
instrumental ensemble to words by J. Tuwim (1958), Five pieces for Two
Pianos (1959), Three Diagrams for solo flute (1959), Monologhi per soprano
e tre gruppi di strumenti (1960), Scontri per orchestra (1960), Diagram
No. 4 for solo flute (1961), Genesis (Elementi per tre archi 1962, Canti
strumentali per 15 esecutori 1962, Monodram per soprano, metalli di
percussione e sei violbassi 1963), Choros I per strumenti ad arco (1964),
Refrain for orchestra (1965), La Musiquette 1 for trumpets and guitar
(1967), La Musiquette 2 for 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 2 pianos and
percussion (1967), La Musiquette 3 for 3 violas (1967), Cantata for organ
(1969), Canticum graduum for orchestra (1969), La Musiquette 4 for
clarinet, trombone, cello and piano (1971), Two Sacral Songs for baritone
and orchestra (1971), Ad Matrem for solo soprano, mixed choir and
orchestra (1971), Symphony No. 2 Copernican for soprano, baritone, mixed
choir and large orchestra (1972), Euntes ibant et flebant for a capella
choir (1973), Amen for a cappella choir (1974), Symphony No. 3 Symphony of
Sorrowful Songs for solo soprano and large symphony orchestra (1976),
Beatus vir, psalm for solo baritone, choir and orchestra (1979), Concerto
for Harpsichord (or Piano) and String Orchestra (1980), Miserere for a
cappella choir (1980), Recitativa e ariosa OLerchenmusik1 for clarinet,
cello and piano (1985), O Domina nostra for solo soprano and organ (1985),
For you, Anne-Lill for flute and piano (1986-90), Aria for tuba, piano,
t0m-t0m and bass drum (1987), Totus Tuus for a cappella choir (1987),
Already it is Dusk String Quartet No. 1 (1988), Good Night for soprano,
alto flute, piano and 3 tam-tams (1990), Quasi una fantasia String
Quartet No. 2 (1991), Concerto-Cantata for flute and orchestra (1992),
Kleines Requiem für eine Polka for piano and 13 instruments (1993),
Przybade Duchu Âwi´ty (Come Holy Spirit) for unaccompanied mixed choir
(1993), String Quartet No. 3 (1999), Salve Sidus Polonorum, cantata about
St Adalbert for large mixed choir, two pianos, organ and percussion
ensemble (19972000), Kurpie Songs for a cappella mixed choir (2003).
Canticum graduum
The piece was commissioned by West German Radio and premiered in Düsseldorf
in December 1969.
To be referring, however obliquely, to old musical traditions in Poland in
the 1960s was both unusual and, with regard to church music, something of
a finger in the eye of the state authorities [] Górecki1s interest in
old Polish music dates back to before his student days, and his movement
titles (OAntiphon1, OLauda1, etc.) and passing allusions to OBogurodzica1
indicated publicly his fascination with old music in the late 1950s. What
is surprising is that he composed some pieces openly based on Polish
Renaissance compositions at the very time that he was at the height of his
experimental period. The first of these was Chora1 w formie kanonu
(Chorale in the Form of a Canon), composed in 1961 []
In Old Polish Music an almost iconographic quotation of the chorale melody
(Benedicamus Domino) is employed in the coda, where
the tension, accumulated earlier in an austere, granitic sculpturing of
the blocks of sound, is resolved.
In Canticum graduum, the coda by now becoming a Górecki hallmark is
also a slow, quiet reflection. Atop its Dorian-mode choral repetition (the
six notes from A to F) can be heard a melodic outline which relates to one
of the Polish chants for the Oprefacja1 of the mass,
a much clearer reference than in the coda of Muzyczka 3, but far from
a direct citation.
Canticum graduum is one of Górecki1s forgotten works, and yet its simple
outline, containing many familiar elements, conceals some masterful
details. Its orchestration is large, including quadruple woodwind (no
oboes but saxophones as well as clarinets) but, like that of Old Polish
Music, no percusssion. It shares with Old Polish Music a subtle
progression of interlocking ideas, although Górecki subdues the timbral
aspects to concentrate upon the harmonic design. This has origins in the
single-pitch openings of works such as Elementi and Choros I and in the
slow palindromic unfolding of melodic motifs and treatment of the
orchestra as a single instrument in Refrain. More particularly, Refrain is
the model for its harmonic intensity and whole-tone ambience. The
deliberate chant rhythm articulates a single giant wedge from the initial
D to a four-octave chord. In two alternating chord combinations, each
whole-tone scale occupies its own register on either side of a central
overlap cluster, but the inexorable registral (and dynamic) expansion is
temporarily halted by returns to an eight-note core. Its melodic surface (mirrored
symmetrically by the bass of the texture) is a major version of the minor
mode Oprefacja1 allusion in the coda, although it independently bears a
strong resemblance to the OPater noster1 chant.
(Excerpted from: Adrian Thomas Górecki,
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997)
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