Sacred Minimalism (2): Henryk Górecki, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

Last week I wrote about one of the most popular works written in the last fifty years – Fratres, by Arvo Pärt – and a compositional approach/ideology that is known by many names, two of which are Sacred Minimalism, and Holy Minimalism.

Henryk Górecki (1933-2010) was another composer associated with this movement, and he wrote what is without any doubt the most popular classical composition of the past 50 years: Symphony No. 3, known as the "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" (1976; just one year prior to Pärt's Fratres).

How popular did it become? Consider this:

• It became a "smash hit" in 1992 when it was released on the Elektra-Nonsuch label, featuring soprano soloist Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta, conducted by David Zinman; this recording has sold over a million copies to date;
• This recording reached number 6 on the mainstream UK album charts (note: these are the pop music charts, not classical);
• It reached number 1 on the US classical charts, and stayed there for 38 weeks;
• It remained on the US classical charts for 138 weeks. 
• Wikipedia reports that "it probably counts as the best selling contemporary classical record of all time."

All of these achievements pertain to just one recording, but it has also been released on many other discs; it would not surprise me if the overall number – the one that includes ALL recordings sold of this work – is in the neighbourhood of 1.5 million, but this is just a wild guess on my part.

I don't know of any analysis that explains why this work became so popular, and I'm not sure that such an analysis is even possible. The reasons behind anything going viral to this degree are a combination of things you can analyze (e.g., "it's a beautiful work;" see more listed below), and momentum, like a snowball rolling down a hill becoming increasingly bigger, to the point where it can wipe out anything in its path.

But at least some of the reasons for its popularity may be:

1.  The work really is very beautiful – the harmony is always tonal/modal, albeit with lots of "blurring" (sustained notes, layered on top of one another) – so listeners unfamiliar with classical music (and those that are) are not hearing anything that might come as a sonic shock to them;
2.  It has a calm, soothing quality, for the most part – a quality associated with other works in the "Sacred Minimalism" style (including last week's example, "Fratres");
3.  Being a type of minimalism, there is lots of repetition, but nowhere near to the degree you find in pulsed minimalist works by, say, Steven Reich, or in static minimalist works by Morton Feldman (although, there are elements of stasis in Górecki's piece as well);
4.  The text is about things that anyone with any degree of empathy in their makeup can relate to; it consists of three laments, told from the perspective of a mother grieving dying (in the first movement) or dead (in the third movement) son, or, in the second movement, told from the perspective of an 18-year old girl imprisoned in a gestapo prison in 1944, and later killed. The text is below.

First Movement

My son, my chosen and beloved
Share your wounds with your mother
And because, dear son, I have always carried you in my heart,
And always served you faithfully
Speak to your mother, to make her happy,
Although you are already leaving me, my cherished hope.
(Lamentation of the Holy Cross Monastery from the "Lysagóra Songs" collection. Second half of the 15th century)

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 Zadopane; 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

Third Movement

Where has he gone
My dearest son?
Perhaps during the uprising
The cruel enemy killed him

Ah, you bad people
In the name of God, the most Holy,
Tell me, why did you kill
My son?

Never again
Will I have his support
Even if I cry
My old eyes out

Were my bitter tears
to create another River Oder
They would not restore to life
My son

He lies in his grave
and I know not where
Though I keep asking people
Everywhere

Perhaps the poor child
Lies in a rough ditch
and instead he could have been
lying in his warm bed

Oh, sing for him
God's little song-birds
Since his mother
Cannot find him

And you, God's little flowers
May you blossom all around
So that my son
May sleep happily(Folk song in the dialect of the Opole region)

It is a very long piece –54 minutes – so be prepared; it gets off to a very slow and quiet start, so quiet that, if you are listening to this through your computer speakers, it is very difficult to hear anything for the first few minutes. For this reason, I have the video below cued to start shortly before the soprano enters, but obviously you should feel free to go back to the start of the piece and listen to the whole thing if you wish.

Its length, stasis, and repetitiveness have led some to wonder how many of the people who bought this disc actually listened to the whole thing, and, for those that did, how many listened to it more than once (this question is referenced in the Wikipedia article).

As always, share any thoughts you may have in the comments section below.