• Górecki: Kyrie**

Hot on the heels of the YouTube upload of the premiere of Górecki’s Symphony no.4 (Górecki: Symphony 4**) comes another upload, this time of his Kyrie (2005), which was premiered in Warsaw, in the presence of his widow Jadwiga, on Easter Monday, 21 April 2014.  Górecki dedicated the Kyrie to Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005. This was intended to be part of a large-scale Mass that remained unrealised at Górecki’s death five years later.  Its sombre mood, underpinned by the low-register tolling, is momentarily relieved by the luminous tone of the a cappella ‘Christe elision’, but its general atmosphere is brooding.  The ending is especially haunting, where the expected return of ‘Kyrie eleison’ is replaced by Polish text.  The Kyrie also has echoes of a much earlier, and now almost forgotten work, the powerful Ad Matrem (1970).  On this evidence, the full Mass, had it been completed, would have been monumental.  You can find this recording on NINATEKA too.