• Iwaszkiewicz on Górecki

Wednesday, 1 February 2012 Leave a comment

The recently published third and final volume of diaries by the Polish poet, playwright and novelist Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 2011) has brought to light some interesting comments on music.  Despite showing intense bitterness and self-absorption on political matters (he had, to say the least, a controversial history of working with the communist establishment since 1945), Iwaszkiewicz (1894-1980) had some keen insights on cultural matters.  His background in music went back to his early years when, as Szymanowski’s younger cousin, he not only suggested the idea for and wrote the libretto of King Roger (1918-24) but also provided Szymanowski with translations of Rabindranath Tagore for the Four Songs and his own poems for Songs of an Infatuated Muezzin, both written in 1918.  He also provided the verse for Szymanowski’s Three Lullabies (1922).

Here are three diary entries which have been drawn to my attention by a friend in Warsaw, who also kindly provided the translations.  The first, from 1966, is a tart nostalgia for the musical past.  The second (1969) and third (1977) entries contain somewhat surprising observations on two pieces by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, who was the only Polish composer to whom Iwaszkiewicz paid any detailed attention in these diaries.  I’ve added some contextual information to two of the three entries.

8 August 1966

W radio ostatni obraz Harnasi  i Infantka Ravela.  Wierzyć się nie chce, że oni byli, żywi, prawdziwi, dotykalni.  Karol!  Ravel!  Co za postaci półpowieściowe, nieuchwytne, niewyobrażalne.  Czy rzeczywiście nie ma już takich ludzi?  Czy tylko mi się wydaje, bo jestem stary i zmęczony, i nie widzę, co mam pod bokiem.  Lutosławski?  Penderecki?  Mój Boże, chyba tego nie można porównać.  Może  w ogóle teraz nie ma artystów.  Może tamci jako ‘artyści’ naprawdę należeli do XIX wieku?  Jak Chopin, jak Liszt?

On the radio, the last scene of Harnasie and Ravel’s Infante.  I do not want to believe that they were here, living, real, tangible.  Karol!  Ravel!  What characters, half taken from a novel, elusive, unimaginable.  Are there really no such people any more?  Or is it only my impression, because I am old and tired and do not see what I have close at hand.  Lutosławski?  Penderecki?  My God, surely one cannot make any comparison.  Perhaps there are no artists at all now.  Perhaps those men, as ‘artists’, truly belonged to the 19th century?  Like Chopin, like Liszt?

24 September 1969

Taka cudowna noc dzisiaj księżycowa.  I pomyśleć, nie mam nikogo, z kim bym mógł wyjść na spacer po ogrodzie.  Hania° nie wychodzi nigdy do ogrodu, zwłaszcza po zachodzie słońca.  Wysłuchałem tylko co Muzyki staropolskiej Góreckiego.*  Monotonne to, ale bardzo ‘wielkie’.  O szerokim  oddechu, prymitywne, z puszczą, z wiatrem, z mordem.  Nic z lukrowanego obrazka a la Wołodyjowski.†  Chyba taka Polska jest prawdziwa.

Such a wonderful moonlit night tonight.  And to think that I have no one with whom I could go for a walk in the garden.  Hania° never goes out into the garden, especially after sunset.  I have just listened to Gorecki’s Old Polish Music.*  Monotonous this, but very ‘great’.  Broadly breathed, primitive, with a primeval forest, with wind, with murder.  Nothing like the sentimental picture-book that is Wołodyjowski.†  Such is perhaps the true Poland.

° Iwaszkiewicz’s wife, Anna
* This must have been the live broadcast on Polish Radio of the world premiere, given by the National Philharmonic SO, conducted by Andrzej Markowski, as part of the 12th ‘Warsaw Autumn’ International Festival of Contemporary Music.
† Wołodyjowski: a reference to a recent feature film Pan Wołodyjowski (Jerzy Hoffman, 1969) which was based on Henryk Sienkiewicz’s historical novel of the same name (1888).

8 September 1977

Iwazkiewicz at Baranów, 1977

Iwaszkiewicz gave the opening paper at a conference of musicologists and musicians at Baranów, 4-12 September 1977.  He made this diary entry after the delegates had listened on 7 September to a recording of Górecki’s Third Symphony ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ (1976).  This must have been a tape of the world premiere given in Royan five months earlier as the piece had not yet been performed in Poland (it was given its Polish premiere at the ‘Warsaw Autumn’ on 25 September 1977).

[…] tak od czasu do czasu wpisywać jakieś laments daje fałszywe wyobrażenie o całym continuum wewnętrznym, które wcale nie składa się wyłącznie z lamentów.  Nie jest też tym continuum przerażającym, jakie wczoraj zaprezentował Górecki w swojej III Symfonii.  Beznadziejny powrót tego samego akordu w pierwszej części symfonii sprawia wrażenie psychopatyczne, maniakalne, a jednak wstrząsające – właśnie jako continuum wewnętrznego, czegoś bardzo głębokiego i tragicznego jakby w założeniu, bez dramatycznych zawołań, bez żadnego ‘teatru dla siebie’.  To bardzo dziwny i niepokojący utwór.

[…] writing down from time to time laments of some kind gives a false impression of the whole internal continuum, which does not at all consist solely of laments.  Nor is it a terrifying continuum, of the kind presented yesterday by Gorecki in his Third Symphony.  The hopeless return of the same chord in the first movement of the symphony makes a psychopathic, maniacal, and yet shocking impression – exactly like an inner continuum, something very deep and almost tragic in its assumption, without dramatic calls, without any ‘theatre for theatre’s sake’.  A very strange and unsettling piece.

Filed under Books & Articles, Górecki, Literature, Lutosławski, Music post-1937, Music pre-1938, Penderecki, Szymanowski Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

• Polish Music ‘Muzyka Nowa’, WQXR ★★★☆☆

Wednesday, 25 January 2012 Leave a comment

If you tune into New York’s WQXR Q2 this week, you’ll find yourself in the midst of a week-long celebration of Chinese music, ‘The Year of the Dragon’.  Bringing new music to its audiences is WQXR Q2’s mission.  It’s been ‘on air’ since October 2009 and is a listener-supported online streaming service devoted to music by living composers. The nature of its audience’s musical preferences may be gleaned from its 2011 ‘New-Music Countdown’, where listeners voted for their favourite music written since 1900.  22 of the top 50 pieces were by living composers, most of them American: Adams (5 works), Adès, Andriessen, Carter, Corigliano, Dennehy, Duckworth, Glass, Golijov (2), Gordon, Lang, Lindberg, Pärt (2), Reich (2) and Riley.

The only Polish composer in the top 50, unsurprisingly, was Górecki, whose Third Symphony came in fifth.

On 20 December last year, Q2 announced a new week-long venture: ‘Muzyka Nowa. A Celebration of Contemporary Polish Music’ (16-22 January 2012).  Well, I was all ears at this news and last week I spent more waking hours listening via iTunes than I had first intended.  This was partly because the streaming audio experience was new to me and I was curious to see how it worked in practice.  I was particularly fascinated to find out how Q2 would tackle such a big theme editorially, given the dearth of Polish names in their end-of-year poll.  The results, as you’ll see, were mixed.

It is perhaps worth comparing a few statistics with the New York Juilliard School’s 27th Focus! festival – ‘Polish Modern: New Directions in Polish Music since 1945′ – which took place exactly a year ago (22-28 January 2011). Juilliard’s Polish Modern festival presented 39 works by 36 composers (one piece per composer, with the exception of Lutosławski, who had the final concert to himself).  It had six concerts, with some 8 hours of music.  Q2’s Muzyka Nowa, by my count, had 107 (post-1945) works by 38 (Polish-born and Polish-trained) composers.  These were spread over six and a half days, including two 24-hour all-Polish marathons (actually, they were just over 21 hours). Where Polish Modern was concentrated, Muzyka Nowa tended towards the diffuse.

Streaming

At least half of each weekday’s playlist at Q2 is unhosted.  That means no announcers and no ‘on air’ indication of what is being played (you have to look ‘on screen’).  There are two main hosted programmes, each repeated twelve hours later: an hour-long slot for music involving keyboard – ‘Hammered!’ – with a short introduction to the day’s repertoire at the top; and a four-hour programme with more conventional introductions and back announcements to each piece.  This means that the online playlists are crucial for anyone wanting to find out what is ‘on air’.  These were fairly easy to access (they give composer and performer details, plus the source).  There were several times in this Polish week, however, when the playlists gave only the title, not the composer. So we had Subito (Lutosławski), Stabat Mater (Szymanowski), En blanc et noir (Augustyn, not Debussy) and String Quartet no.6 (Bacewicz? Meyer? no – Lasoń).  The major drawback is that there is generally no advance notice of programme details.  This makes structured listening impossible.  For some listeners, that may be perfect, the ideal ‘innocent ear’ environment.  But for anyone who likes to plan some or all of their listening, it can be immensely frustrating.  It doesn’t do, either, to expect a programme to begin or end at the allotted hour.

The appearance of Szymanowski was anachronistic, given the basic idea behind Muzyka Nowa.  In fact, his contribution was quite slight, with Métopes (1915), the Mazurkas op.50 (1925) and Stabat Mater (1926) being the only major pieces.  But at least they were written within the past 100 years.  Karłowicz’s 1902 Violin Concerto (3 complete airings plus two of the three movements on another occasion) was a puzzling inclusion, while the appearance of Chopin’s Polonaise in F sharp minor (1841) on this ‘Living Music. Living Composers’ station was altogether bizarre.  And even the presenter was surprised by the inclusion, during Wednesday’s all-Polish marathon, of the Tenth Piano Sonata by a Russian composer: “Scriabin, of all people”, he muttered.

A further sign of editorial fluidity was the way in which programme titles changed as the week progressed.  ‘Jakub Ciupiński Hosts’ became ‘The Holy [‘Holy’?] Trinity of Contemporary Polish Music’ and ‘Poland’s Next Wave’, while the four-hour hosted programme ‘Polish Composers: 20th Century Masters to the Next Generation’ became the exaggerated ‘Titans of Polish Music: Past, Present and Future’.  Outside the two marathon days, this particular slot, like the unhosted segments, generally devoted 50%-60% of its play time to Polish repertoire.

Presentation

To be brutally honest, little was added to listener enjoyment or knowledge by the hosted programmes, with the exception of the two slots specially hosted by Jakub Ciupiński.  Ciupiński is a young Polish composer now living in New York and he brought an insight to his chosen repertoire that was a model of enthusiasm and concision.  He should do more broadcasting.  The shame was that Q2 seemed not to have used his ability as a native speaker to do something about other presenters’ pronunciation of Polish names.

Almost twenty years since Górecki became a household name, it was extraordinary to hear ‘Goorekki’ rather than ‘Gooretski’.  Nowa inexplicably became ‘Nuova’, Piotr became ‘Peetor’.  The consonant ‘z’ frequently became invisible/inaudible.  Bruzdowicz was first said correctly (hooray!), then immediately ‘corrected’ to ‘Brudowicz’.  For Andrzej we heard ‘Andrezh’.  And yet, seconds later, the ‘J’ of Jacek miraculously was not a ‘Zh’ but the correct ‘Y’. Such manglings were all too common.  Unhosted segments suddenly seemed more attractive.

The quality of the commentaries also left something to be desired.  The real low-point was the introduction to Penderecki’s Polish Requiem during the first marathon on Wednesday.  Having described it as “big, beautiful, crazy, awesome” – a less appropriate, more vacuous series of adjectives is hard to imagine – the presenter concluded with “he sort of wrote it piecemeal … he sort of expanded it … at the basic level it’s just a setting of the requiem … Antoni Wit is the conductor of the whole shebang”.

Repertoire

The range of post-1945 music included in Muzyka Nowa was fairly impressive (a full repertoire list is given at the end of this post).  It highlighted, as Q2 put it, the ‘Titans’ or the ‘Holy Trinity’ – Lutosławski, Penderecki and Górecki – and included composers born in every decade from the 1900s to the 1980s, with the youngest composer, as far as I can tell, being the 24-year-old Jacek Sotomski.  There was a good variety of solo, chamber, orchestral, vocal and vocal-instrumental music, though no examples of opera, music theatre or jazz.  It also skirted a little around the experimental trends of the past 50 years (no Schaeffer, just one piece by Krauze).

There did not appear to be much in the way of editorial planning in terms of sub-groupings or sub-themes, and this left the sense of an opportunity missed.  After all, there is surely no automatic equation: ‘unhosted=unthemed’. Would it not have been possible to retitle and structure some of the random unhosted segments, just for this Polish week? Closest to such an idea was the programming of the six CD-available string quartets by Lasoń, but nowhere was this flagged up as a feature.  There were no complete symphonies by any of the ‘Holy Trinity’, no works written for the seminal chamber ensemble ‘Music Workshop’, no focus on any selected genre, generation or sub-period, such as sacred music, ‘Generation ’51’ or music post-1989.  But anyone who has programmed a festival will know that there is always too much choice, so hats off to Q2 at the very least  for bringing its listeners a decent if apparently random selection from the Polish table.

A word on sources.  Q2 is primarily a CD operation although it’s not afraid to use private recordings, some of them live, when it suits the programming and is of acceptable quality.  That’s all to the good.  I imagine that it is run on something of a shoestring, so is dependent on what is to hand, such as a copious supply of Naxos CDs.  It had also evidently been given a number of CDs made by the superb Silesian Quartet from Katowice.  On this occasion, importantly, it had access to live performances:

• Since the ‘Warsaw Autumn’ festival began in 1956, it has sought to promote the (mainly Polish) music that it has programmed by means of recordings, its ‘Sound Chronicles’.  These were issued initially on LPs, later on tape cassettes, and now on CDs.  Unfortunately, the Sound Chronicles have never been available commercially.  University libraries and major radio stations are the most likely places to hold these extensive and valuable recordings.  Q2 made most use of a selection of highlights from the first 50 years of the festival, compiled in 2007 by the Polish music critic Andrzej Chłopecki.  It’s a 10-CD box set, with single pieces by 70 composers, eight of which were included in Muzyka Nowa.  Recordings were also taken from the Sound Chronicles for the 2008 and 2009 festivals.
• Q2 trumpeted its broadcasting of excerpts from two other festivals.  The first of these was the 2011 UNSOUND festival in Kraków.  In the event, only one Polish piece was aired – (Michał) Jacaszek’s launch of music from his new album Glimmer – although it was very much worth it, as reviews for the album have already proved.  The second festival was last year’s Juilliard Focus! on Polish modern music, mentioned at the top of this post.  Sad to report, but only four of the 39 pieces from Polish Modern made it onto the Muzyka Nowa playlist.
• Top of the live performance contributions was Q2’s own recording of a concert last November, given to mark the first anniversary of Górecki’s death.  More on this towards the end of this post.

The outline of 107 works by 38 composers spread over almost 160 hours needs some elaboration.  At the heart of the WQXR Q2 operation is the principle of repeat programming.  This not only applies to the hosted segments, as outlined above, but to the rest of the schedule too.  So it’s not surprising to find that 2/3rds of the 107 pieces were repeated.  That’s fair enough.  But when the repetitions themselves were repeated, alarm bells started to sound and interest began to wane.  When the number of repeat airings increased further, the only conclusion that could be drawn was that insufficient editorial control had been exercised (did we really need five performances of Górecki’s Four Preludes or Lutosławski’s Piano Sonata, both early and unrepresentative works?).  34 pieces had three or more airings, with 13 of them heard four or more times:

• Joanna Bruzdowicz: World (4)
• Jakub Ciupiński: Morning Tale (7: Lin, 3; Chow, 4)
• Henryk Górecki: Piano Concerto (2) = Harpsichord Concerto (4), Four Preludes (5)
• Wojciech Kilar: Chorale Prelude (5: Juilliard/Sachs, 4; NOSPR/Wit, 1)
• Eugeniusz Knapik: Corale, interludio e aria (4)
• Andrzej Krzanowski: String Quartet no.3 (4)
• Witold Lutosławski: Piano Sonata (5)
• Andrzej Panufnik: Violin Concerto (4)
• Elżbieta Sikora: Canzona (4: Moscow CME/Thorel, 1; New Juilliard E/Sachs, 3)
• Stanisław Skrowaczewski: Music at Night (4)
• Paweł Szymański: Two Studies (7: Grzybowski, 4; Esztényi, 3), Une suite de pièces de clavecin par Mr Szymański (7)

All in all, there were 131 repeat airings (not including partial repeats), compared with the basic repertoire of 107 compositions.  That made 238 broadcast items overall, at least by my reckoning (that’s equivalent to 34 a day, or one and a half pieces an hour).  There was no discernible rationale for which pieces were or were not repeated.  I for one welcome the additional exposure for Knapik, Krzanowski and Sikora (she fared particularly well).  If Q2 wanted to raise the profile of Bruzdowicz, however, they could have done better than to broadcast her song cycle World in a recording which harboured the most grotesque singing that I have ever heard.

Undoubtedly the most unbalanced programming was accorded to Szymański, whom I have admired for over 30 years and remain an ardent champion.  But even he would acknowledge that to air two of his keyboard compositions seven times apiece – and one of them with just one recording – was out of proportion.  It’s not even as if they are his most distinctive or distinguished works.

Just think what could have been done had the extent of the repetitions been cut back.  If those two keyboard works by Szymański, for example, had had just two airings each, instead of seven, that would have freed up 3 hrs 45′.  We might then have heard a wider range of Szymański works, like his Partita III, Partita IV, Lux Aeterna or Miserere.  All of these pieces, totalling just under an hour of music, are on the same CD from which Q2 drew the three airings of Szymański’s Two Studies which were played by its dedicatee, Szábolcs Esztényi.  How easy it would have been to include these four other works, and to what benefit of the repertoire.  Furthermore, their inclusion would still have left 2 hrs 45′ for other new repertoire.  The principle of this idea is self-evident.  This was a programming opportunity missed, and Muzyka Nowa was the poorer for it.

Absent Friends

It was even poorer for some serious omissions from its roster of composers.  Whether or not the relatively modest number of 38 composers was a deliberate decision is impossible to say, but seven other names among many were notable for their absence.  Firstly, though perhaps not most importantly, was Henryk Górecki’s son Mikołaj, who is also a composer and teaches in Texas.  Q2 had spoken to him and posted An Interview with Mikołaj Górecki online. They even got him to provide a playlist, commenting also that he “is plenty accomplished in his own right”.  But not a note of his music was heard.  Also absent was one of Poland’s most imaginative and internationally recognised composers, Marta Ptaszyńska, who has lived and taught in the United States for many years.  Where was she? Where also were Tadeusz Wielecki and Stanisław Krupowicz, contemporaries of Knapik, Lasoń and Szymański and equally important figures in Polish music since the late 1970s?  And where was Hanna Kulenty, surely one of the most talented and exploratory composers born in the 1960s?

The most astonishing hole in the repertoire was left by the total exclusion of Tadeusz Baird and Kazimierz Serocki. Baird and Serocki were the driving force behind the ‘Warsaw Autumn’ festival, on whose Sound Chronicles Q2 relied for the majority of its ‘live’ output.  Even if such historical significance is put to one side, is there anyone with any knowledge of Polish music who would deny that Baird and Serocki were composers of international significance, composers of striking individuality whose music stands up as well today as it did when they were alive?  All Q2 had to do, with minimum effort, was to take Chłopecki’s choice from the 1956-2005 ‘Warsaw Autumn’ boxed set – as it did for pieces by Augustyn, Bargielski, Grudzień, Knapik, Krauze, Meyer, Stachowski and Szymański – and broadcast Baird’s Play and Serocki’s Impromptu fantasque.  While Serocki is not well served by the CD catalogue, several CDs of Baird’s music are available and would have immensely enriched the mix of the week’s repertoire.

Górecki live

‘In memoriam Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’ was the flagship event for Muzyka Nowa.  It was a recording of a concert given at the New York bar/café (Le) Poisson Rouge, which has a full artistic programme of events embracing a wide musical spectrum.  On 8 November 2011, Q2 recorded two pieces: the Second String Quartet ‘Quasi una fantasia’, performed by the JACK Quartet, and Little Requiem, performed by Signal Ensemble.  The concert was preceded by an interview with Bob Hurwitz, the founder of Nonesuch Records and the man responsible for that recording of Górecki’s Third Symphony.  The transmission was scheduled for 19.00 local time (midnight UK time) last Thursday, 19 January.

Things could not have gone more disastrously wrong.  For unexplained reasons, the broadcast began 50 minutes early, the last 3′ of Quasi una fantasia were overlapped by the first 3′ of Little Requiem, and the pre-concert talk was broadcast at the end.  Fortunately, the rebroadcast during the second marathon, on Saturday, was all in order (although the ambient noise of the venue and the uneven miking did not help on either occasion).  Was this episode a consequence of misfortune or incompetence?  It certainly made me realise what a blessing it is in the UK to have responsible broadcasters.

Postscript

Despite my criticisms, I don’t want to leave the impression that this was by any means a failure, just that with a little more thought and programming tweaks it could have been excellent.  It was a bold venture and one which reaped many rewards, not least the unexpected juxtapositions of composers and pieces.  Q2’s principal aim – to bring a vibrant musical repertoire to the attention of a potentially new audience – was in good measure realised.

For this listener, there were some real highlights, among them:

• being reacquainted with music by Polish composers now in their 40s and early 50s, such as Jacek Grudzień’s Ad Naan (2002) with its dynamic use of electronic manipulation, and Agata Zubel’s Cascando (2007), in which she was the engaging vocal soloist.
• being introduced to the music of younger composers, still in their 20s or early 30s, such as Jacaszek’s electro-acoustic Glimmer (2011, already mentioned), Mateusz Ryczek’s NGC 4414 for two pianos and percussion (2008) and Krzysztof Wołek’s Elements for ensemble and live electronics (2009).
• and, best of all, hearing the extraordinary jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stańko improvising over Tomasz Sikorski’s tape piece Solitude of Sounds (1975) at the 2009 ‘Warsaw Autumn’.

…….

Q2 ‘Muzyka Nowa’ Repertoire, 16-22 January 2012

alphabetical by composer, with works in the order in which they first appeared
the (x) after a work indicates the number of times that the same recording was used

• Rafał Augustyn: En blanc et noir
• Grażyna Bacewicz: Piano Sonata no.2 (2), Violin Concerto no.1, Partita for violin and piano (3), Piano Quintet no.2 (3), Overture, Concerto for String Orchestra (2), Capriccio, Violin Concerto no.3 (2), Piano Quintet no.1 (3), Sonata no.2 for Solo Violin
• Zbigniew Bagiński: Danza generale
• Zbigniew Bargielski: Slapstick (3)
• Wojciech Blecharz: Torpor
• Wojciech Błażejczyk: Seica
• Marcin Bortnowski: …looking into the heart of the light, the silence
• Joanna Bruzdowicz: 16 Pictures at an Exhibition of Salvador Dali (2), World (4)
• Jakub Ciupiński: Morning Tale (7: Lin, 3; Chow, 4), Continuum/II (3), Street Prayer
• Henryk Górecki: Piano Concerto (2) = Harpsichord Concerto (4), Miserere, Four Preludes (5), Symphony no.2/II, String Quartet no.2 (2), Little Requiem (2), Piano Sonata (2), Szeroka woda, Symphony no.3, Symphony no.2, O Domina Nostra, Good Night
• Jacek Grudzień: Ad Naan (3)
• (Michał) Jacaszek: Glimmer 
• Wojciech Kilar: Orawa (2), Kościelec 1909, Chorale Prelude (5: Juilliard/Sachs, 4; NOSPR/Wit, 1)
• Eugeniusz Knapik: Corale, interludio e aria (4), String Quartet
• Krzysztof Knittel: A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising, Lipps (3), Harpsichord Concerto
• Jerzy Kornowicz: Frayed Figures
• Zygmunt Krauze: Aus aller Welt stammende (2)
• Andrzej Krzanowski: String Quartet no.3 (4), Relief V
• Aleksander Lasoń: String Quartet no.6 (2), String Quartet no.2 (2), String Quartet no.3, String Quartet no.5 (3), String Quartet no.1 (2), String Quartet no.7
• Witold Lutosławski: Piano Concerto (2), String Quartet (2), Livre (2) Chantefleurs et Chantefables (3: Anderson, 2; Pasiecznik, 1), Piano Sonata (5), Symphony no.2 (2), Concerto for Orchestra (3), Subito, Variations on a Theme of Paganini (2), Sacher Variation (2), Overture for Strings (3), Symphony no.4, Symphony no.3
• Krzysztof Meyer: Fireballs (3)
• Paweł Mykietyn: 3 for 13 (2), Sonata for Cello (2)
• Aleksander Nowak: Fiddler’s Green and White Savannahs Never More (2), Songs of Caress (3), Sonata ‘June-December’ (2)
• Andrzej Panufnik: Violin Concerto (4), Sinfonia Sacra (2), String Sextet (3), Sinfonia di sfere (3), String Quartet no.2 (2)
• Krzysztof Penderecki: Anaklasis (2), Seven Gates of Jerusalem/I (2), Te Deum (2), Hymne an den heiligen Daniel (2), Polish Requiem (2),  Polish Requiem/Lacrimosa, Polish Requiem/Chaconne (2), St Luke Passion, Horn Concerto, Violin Concerto no.1, De natura sonoris no.2
• Grażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil: El Condor … ‘thinking of Vivaldi’ (Spring) (2)
• Mateusz Ryczek: NGC 4414 (3)
• Elżbieta Sikora: Suite (2), Le Chant de Salomon (3),  Concertino for ‘Blue’ Harp and Orchestra ‘South Shore’ (3), Three Lieder ‘Eine Rose als Stutze’, Canzona (4: Moscow CME/Thorel, 1; New Juilliard E/Sachs, 3)
• Tomasz Sikorski: Strings in the Earth (2), Solitude of Sounds (2)
• Stanisław Skrowaczewski: Music at Night (4)
• Jacek Sotomski: Enneaszyna
• Marek Stachowski: Divertimento
• Witold Szalonek: Chaconne (2), Inside? – Outside?
• Paweł Szymański: Two Studies (7: Grzybowski, 4; Esztényi, 3), Une suite de pièces de clavecin par Mr Szymański (7), Singletrack (3), Gloria (3)
• Ewa Trębacz: Errai
• Krzysztof Wołek: Elements (2)
• Agata Zubel: Cascando (2)
• Wojciech Ziemowit Zych: Symphony no.1 (3), Bass Clarinet Concerto

Filed under 'Warsaw Autumn', Bacewicz, Baird, Born 1938-49, Born 1950-69, Born 1970-89, Concerts, Górecki, Lutosławski, Music Dissemination, Music post-1937, Other Festivals, Penderecki, Radio, Reviews, Serocki Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

• Polish Music Festival on WQXR Q2

Monday, 16 January 2012 Leave a comment

A friend in Warsaw alerted me yesterday to the week-long festival of contemporary Polish music ‘Muzyka Nowa’ that starts today on the Q2 Music internet stream of WQXR in New York.  This promises to be a fascinating opportunity for listeners to catch up with or hear for the first time some of the wide range of new music emanating from Poland. ‘Emanating’ is not a very good word in this context because much of the music never leaves its native country, so WQXR and Q2 Music are doing something immensely valuable with this programming.

As far as I can work it out from http://www.wqxr.org/#/q2/, here’s the timetable, translated to British time:

Monday 16 – Saturday 22 January 2012
Audio highlights within general programming from
• ‘Warsaw Autumn’ festivals
• Kraków’s mould-breaking UNSOUND festivals
• Juilliard FOCUS! 2011 festival ‘Polish Modern: New Directions in Polish Music since 1945’.

Monday 16 January
16.00-17.00  Hammered! (1)
17.00-21.00  Polish Composers: 20th-Century Masters to the Next Generation (1)

Tuesday 17 January
00.00-01.00  Jakub Ciupinski Hosts (1)
04.00-05.00  Hammered! (1) R
05.00-09.00  Polish Composers: … (1) R
16.00-17.00  Hammered! (2)
17.00-21.00  Polish Composers: 20th-Century Masters to the Next Generation (2)

Wednesday 18 January
00.00-01.00  Jakub Ciupinski Hosts (2)
04.00-05.00  Hammered! (2) R
05.00-23.59  24-hour Contemporary Polish Music Marathon (1)
05.00-09.00  Polish Composers: … (2) R
16.00-17.00  Hammered! (3)
17.00-21.00  Polish Composers: 20th-Century Masters to the Next Generation (3)

Thursday 19 January
00.00-05.00  24-hour Contemporary Polish Music Marathon (1) cont.
04.00-05.00  Hammered! (3) R
05.00-09.00   Polish Composers: … (3) R
15.00-16.00   Jakub Ciupinski Hosts (1) R
16.00-17.00  Hammered! (4)
17.00-21.00  Polish Composers: 20th-Century Masters to the Next Generation (4)

Friday 20 January
00.00-?  In Memoriam Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, recorded 8 November at Le Poisson Rouge, Greenwich Village
04.00-05.00  Hammered! (4) R
05.00-09.00   Polish Composers: … (4) R
15.00-16.00   Jakub Ciupinski Hosts (2) R
16.00-17.00  Hammered! (5)
17.00-21.00  Polish Composers: 20th-Century Masters to the Next Generation (5)

Saturday 21 January
04.00-05.00  Hammered! (5) R
05.00-23.59  24-hour Contemporary Polish Music Marathon (2)
05.00-09.00  Polish Composers: … (5) R
18.00-?  In Memoriam Henryk Mikołaj Górecki R

Sunday 22 January
00.00-05.00  24-hour Contemporary Polish Music Marathon (2) cont.

Filed under Concerts, Górecki, Music Dissemination, Music post-1937, Other Festivals, Radio Tagged with , , , ,

• On What Would Have Been His 78th Birthday

Tuesday, 6 December 2011 Leave a comment

On what would have been Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s 78th birthday, his daughter Anna has sent me a photograph of his newly installed gravestone (nagrobek).  One of the words which I have long used to describe his music is ‘granitic’, so I am fascinated by the sculptural use of this material above what looks like a smooth, dark-slate grave cover.  It conveys the character of the man and his creative outlook brilliantly: rugged, imposing and unconventional, yet warm-hearted, touching and touchable.

Filed under Górecki, Katowice, Music post-1937, Places, Visual Arts Tagged with , ,

• A Last Amen for Górecki

Thursday, 17 November 2011 Leave a comment

I had not intended to post so much on Górecki over the past few days, but events and memories have rather taken over.  Not least of these are my recollections of the funeral, which took place in Katowice on this date last year.  I hope that my account below will give some sense of the occasion.

I caught an early train from Warsaw along with Polish friends and colleagues.  The cloud hung grey and dismal over the central lowlands.  Katowice looked the same as it had two weeks earlier, when I’d come to see Górecki for what turned out to be the last time.  Katowice, too, was grey and dismal, but then it often looks that way.  There was time for a reviving cup of tea and a sandwich, time for my friend to collect a bouquet, and time to buy the new edition of Tygodnik Powszechny, which had published my appreciation of Górecki along with those of others.  We walked to the Arch-Cathedral of Christ the King, whose huge dome sits squatly atop the cruciform building.  The dome should have been higher, but the post-war communist authorities did not want a Christian building dominating the area.  It was just as well that we arrived early, because the Cathedral was packed long before the scheduled start at 13.00.

Górecki had been cremated the previous day, in a private ceremony.  I was told that the Roman Catholic church in Poland barely tolerates cremation and would not countenance a funeral service beforehand, which is customary here in the UK.  (I recollect that, in 1994, Lutosławski’s ashes were brought to the chapel in Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw for the funeral service.  He had been cremated in the (then) only crematorium in Poland, in Poznań in the centre of the country.)  Urns are always buried, as the scattering of ashes is illegal in Poland.  Most of the close relatives, including his daughter Anna and her family, arrived at 12.45, his widow Jadwiga and son Mikołaj on the dot of 13.00.  They were followed by the funeral directors bearing wreaths and Górecki’s funeral urn, which was placed, gently sloping, on its back, with a large central candle behind and the funeral plaque in front.

The ceremony was in two parts, designed to last about two hours.  Almost inevitably, it overran, by almost an hour. First there was a concert, then the service proper.  The musical institutions of Katowice and further afield had pulled out all the stops.  Górecki’s former pupil, Eugeniusz Knapik, who is the senior figure at the Academy of Music in the city, where both Górecki and he studied, had played a key role in bringing everything together.  Three of Katowice’s orchestras performed – the National SO of Polish Radio, the Silesian PO and the AUKSO CO – alongside soloists and choirs from Katowice and Kraków.

The concert began with Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, a work with which Górecki had a deep affinity.  Unfortunately, the Cathedral has a ballooning acoustic with a reverberation time of almost 10″.  The a cappella fourth movement, however, sounded well.  There followed a performance of Górecki’s Beatus vir (1979), the last of the three monumental works that he composed in the 70s – it had been preceded by the Second Symphony ‘Copernican’ (1972) and Third Symphony ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ (1975).  It sounded as strong and imposing as it must have done at its first performance, which Górecki conducted in Kraków in front of the newly elected John-Paul II.

The mass, which began at 14.15, was presided over by Cardinal Franciszek Macharski, a close family friend.  There were addresses by other church figures, by the Minister of Culture and by the President of the Polish Composers’ Union.  In the congregation were composers of Górecki’s generation – Krzysztof Penderecki (Kraków) and Wojciech Kilar (Katowice) – and younger ones too, including Górecki’s pupils Knapik and Rafał Augustyn.  As far as I am aware, I was the only person from abroad, which I found rather sad, given how significant had been the relationship between the composer and major broadcasting, concert, publishing and recording institutions outside Poland.

There were a couple of musical surprises too.  A performance of Totus Tuus was to be expected, but Penderecki conducting Amen was less so.  And I was not the only one to be taken unawares, at the start of the communion service, by the performance of an excerpt from Strauss’s Metamorphosen.  According to his widow, this had been the one musical request for his funeral that Górecki had made.

The ceremonies came to a close at 15.45.  This must have come as a blessed relief for the representatives of organisations from Katowice and the Polish mountains who had stood with their banners at the far end of the Cathedral for the preceding three hours (see the photo above).  They now moved down to the aisle, leading the procession out of the main doors.  Górecki’s oldest grandchild, still in his mid-teens, carried the urn, flanked by his father and his uncle.  Then began the walk to the cemetery.  It took some 15′ for everyone to leave the Cathedral, and by this time dusk was falling fast.  We proceeded slowly up the side street, just a few hundred metres, and into the cemetery, but such was the crush of people that I had to look on from some distance.

En route, a miner’s band played solemn music and the urn was carried in relay, concluding with a trio of mourners from the mountain town of Zakopane (also carrying the plaque and a heart-shaped carved box containing soil from the mountains).  Most of Górecki’s happiest moments had been spent in this region since the late 1950s.  He honeymooned there and for many years in the 1970s and 80s rented a log cabin in the little village of Chochołów, before finally buying his own house in the 1990s in the village of Ząb, on a high ridge facing the magnificent jagged peaks of the Tatra Mountains.  He revelled in the views and the culture of the place.

At the graveside, further prayers and blessings were said, the urn placed in the ground and the mountain soil poured over.

There was then a patient wait to greet the family, a process further lengthened by the many mourners who carefully placed their wreaths and bouquets, creating a waist-high bank of flowers around the grave.  I became aware, beyond the low murmuring about me, of distant music.  It seemed familiar.  50 or so metres away, indistinguishable in the shadows, was a folk kapela, a string ensemble from the mountains.  They were playing a melody from the Tatras, keening and unbelievably poignant.  Earlier, they had walked from the Cathedral in daylight.  Now, they were paying a final tribute to their adopted son as night closed in.

Postscript

At the reception afterwards in the Academy of Music, his widow Jadwiga told me about her husband’s last moments. She has now repeated the story in public in an interview, ‘Dom na dwa fortepiany’ (Home for Two Pianos), in the Polish Catholic weekly Gość Niedzielny (Sunday Guest, 13 November 2011, 58-59):

Father Krzysztof Tabath, the hospital chaplain for Katowice-Ochojec, … came to the hospital half an hour later than usual.  At my request, he movingly described those last moments: “Eventually, I reached Mr Gorecki.  I began with “Our Father”, then “Hail Mary”, and then “Soul of Christ, sanctify me” “.  And there, the whole time, above the bed, were flashing the monitors to which my husband was connected.  During the saying of the prayer the display panel gradually dimmed, then went out altogether, and he died. During the prayer, he had crossed over into the other world.  I cannot imagine a better death.  It was simply wonderful.  I am happy that it was like that.

When Jadwiga told me the story, she added the resonant detail that Henryk had died as the priest uttered the final ‘Amen’.

Filed under Górecki, Katowice, Music post-1937, Music pre-1938, Places, Szymanowski, Zakopane Tagged with , , , , , , ,

• Recalling Górecki: Two Radio Tributes

Wednesday, 16 November 2011 Leave a comment

The other day, I came across these two short tributes on the Polish Radio website thenews.pl.  Although they were broadcast a year ago, they are still available.  Just follow the indicated mp3 link on each page.

The first is by David Harrington, the leader of Kronos Quartet.  Harrington was instrumental in commissioning Górecki’s three string quartets (1988, 1991 and 1995/2005) and he and Górecki formed a close professional and personal friendship.  On the day of Górecki’s death (12 November 2010), Kronos happened to be in Poland to give  a concert that evening in Wrocław.  In tribute, they played an arrangement of ‘Z Torunia ja parobecek’ (I am a Farmhand from Toruń), the fourth of Górecki’s Five Kurpian Songs (1999).  Harrington spoke the following day with Michał Kubicki.

http://thenews.pl/1/6/Artykul/21737,A-tribute-to-Gorecki

The second interview is one that I also recorded with Michał Kubicki that day.

http://thenews.pl/1/6/Artykul/21742,‘He-had-a-fantastic-sense-of-humour

Filed under Górecki, Music post-1937, Radio Tagged with , , ,

• Polish Orchestra Named After Górecki

Monday, 14 November 2011 Leave a comment

The city of Katowice in southern Poland today honoured its most famous and distinguished musical son.  The Silesian PO (Filharmonia Śląska) has been named in memory of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, who died on 12 November 2010.

His widow Jadwiga, who was present at the announcement, said that the initiative to confer the title left her “breathless with delight and emotion”.  Also present were their daughter Anna, her husband and their three children.

Górecki’s association with the Silesian PO went back to before he became a student at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice in 1955.  He would often travel from his home town two hours away to hear concerts both by the Silesian PO and by the other full-size symphony orchestra in Katowice, the Great SO of Polish Radio.

The Silesian PO first honoured Górecki, while he was still a student, by devoting an entire concert to his recent compositions.  On 27 February 1958, it premiered Toccata for two pianos (1955), Variations for violin and piano (1956), Quartettino (1956), Songs of Joy and Rhythm (1956), Sonata for two violins (1957) and Concerto for Five Instruments and String Quartet (1957).  It subsequently premiered Epitafium (1958) at the 2nd ‘Warsaw Autumn’ Festival on 3 October 1958, Genesis II: Canti strumentali (1962) at the 6th ‘Warsaw Autumn’ on 16 September 1962 and Choros I (1964) at the 8th ‘Warsaw Autumn’ on 22 September 1964.

In choosing Górecki as its patron, the Silesian PO is following an honourable new tradition in Polish music.  The Zielona Góra PO renamed itself after the composer Tadeusz Baird in 1982, the year after his death, and the Wrocław PO renamed itself after Witold Lutosławski in 1994, with the blessing of his widow, who died just three months after her husband.

The commemorations to mark the first anniversary of Górecki’s death have already included a concert last night in which his Three Pieces in Old Style (1963) was played.  Tomorrow night, the ‘Górecki Philharmonic’, conducted by Mirosław Błaszczyk, will give a concert in the Arch-Cathedral in Katowice (where the funeral service was held last year).  Opening the programme will be the premiere of Nocturne (2011) by Górecki’s son Mikołaj, and this will be followed by a performance of Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.

Filed under Baird, Concerts, Górecki, Katowice, Lutosławski, Music Dissemination, Music post-1937, Places Tagged with , , , ,

• and a Bench for Tuwim too

Sunday, 13 November 2011 Leave a comment

It was only as I was researching my preceding post – on Henryk Górecki and his attachment to Julian Tuwim’s poem Song of Joy and Rhythm – that I came across what looks like a remarkable parallel between memorials to these two giants of 20th-century Polish culture.

In another post twelve days ago – A Conversation with Henryk Górecki – I reported on a whimsical yet thoughtful monument to him that had been unveiled on 10 September in Rydułtowy, the town in Silesia where he lived from the age of 2 until he was 22.  As you’ll see or have seen, Górecki is sitting on the right-hand end of a bench, reading a musical score.

Well, blow me down, Tuwim too has been honoured with a bench, in his home town, Łódź, in central Poland.  This is the work of Wojciech Gryniewicz and was unveiled in 1999.  Like Górecki, Tuwim is seated on the right-hand end of a bench that in his case is also sculpted.  The key difference here is the posture.  Tuwim is looking out, not down, possibly above and beyond the eyeline of any companion.  Maybe he’s ‘lying in wait for God’ (Czyhanie na Bogu, the title of the collection that included Song of Joy and Rhythm).

I must say that I’m rather taken by the modest, down-to-earth approach of these sculpture-installations.  Does anyone know of other examples in addition to Maggi Hambling’s A Conversation with Oscar Wilde in London?

Filed under Górecki, Literature, Places, Visual Arts Tagged with , , , , ,

• Song of Joy and Rhythm

Saturday, 12 November 2011 Leave a comment

A text message came through from Anna Górecka, at 08.24 on this day last year, to say that her father had died earlier that morning.  She was away on tour and went on to fulfil her commitment to perform Górecki’s Piano Concerto that evening in Szczecin.  Her husband left me a voice message.  Although I knew that Henryk Górecki was dying, it was still a shock.  The rest of the day was a blur.  I phoned his publishers in London, but the news was not yet public knowledge even in Poland.  At 10.30, a friend in Warsaw, whom I’d alerted as soon as I had heard, phoned to let me know that Górecki’s death had just been announced.

The phone rang off the hook: advice for a researcher on R4’s PM programme, an interview for the World Service’s The Strand, a live interview on R3’s In Tune, a call from R4’s Front Row and an unfulfilled promise “We’ll phone back”, an interview down the line to a live Polish TV tribute, plus writing a short appreciation for The Guardian.  The last was difficult to do.

Amidst this, I had a visitation at 10.20 from a blue tit, which flew in unannounced through a narrowly open window, stood immobile on the floor for a while, eyeing me keenly, before eventually finding its way back outside and to freedom.  I’m not given to fanciful symbolism, but even I found myself seeing a message in the bird’s arrival and departure.  They say that it’s good to open a window after a death to let the spirit free.

When I was writing on Górecki in the early 1990s, I came across the poem which inspired the title of his extrovert Pieśni o radości i rytmie (Songs of Joy and Rhythm, 1956/60).  This early work bears all the hallmarks of Górecki’s contrasting musical and personal temperaments.  The heart of the work is the contemplative third movement.  It is arguably here that Górecki principally evokes the wonderment of the poem from which he borrowed his title.

Pieśń o radości i rytmie was written by one of Poland’s best-known poets of the twentieth-century, Julian Tuwim (1894-1953).  Many Polish composers have set Tuwim’s verse, including Szymanowski and Lutosławski.  Górecki was particularly attached to Tuwim’s poetry, setting it in his early student days (3 Songs, 1956) and again for his five-year-old daughter (2 Little Songs, 1972).  His most striking setting, in a terse Webernian style, was in Epitafium (1958), for SATB choir, piccolo, D trumpet, five percussionists and viola.  The text is Tuwim’s last poetic fragment, written on a serviette in a coffee shop just an hour before his death.  Its enigmatic message – ‘… for the sake of economy put out the light eternal, if it were ever to shine for me’ – is evocatively captured by Górecki’s exploratory score.

A year ago today, I looked out Tuwim’s (singular) poem and read it several times, mainly because it immediately recalled Górecki’s boundless energy and the inner peace which he sought during his often difficult life.  So I offer it here, in my own raw translation, as a tribute to a composer and a man for whom I had enormous respect and affection and who miraculously returned the favour.   

Pieśń o radości i rytmie (Song of Joy and Rhythm)
from Chyhanie na Bogu (Lying in Wait for God, 1918)

The stars twinkled in the sky.
In space – billions of universes.
Silence.

Resting my forehead in my hand and thinking.
I do not dream.
A big Reality has awoken me,
A truth that strikes the eye,
The truth that is being, visible, unique,
Eternal:

I – under this huge starry dome,
I – perceiving its entirety with my brain,
I relish it, I become one with myself
And slowly – inside – I am restored to myself:
To profound joy and perfect rhythm.

All my thoughts, words and deeds
Were only bringing me closer
To universal embrace:
Here I am resting joyfully in myself
Wrapped in deep silence on all sides
And my heart beats in the rhythm of
Everything that surrounds me.
Enough.  No need for words.

Filed under Górecki, Literature, Music Dissemination, Music post-1937, Radio Tagged with , , ,

• On Tour with Górecki

Wednesday, 9 November 2011 Leave a comment

It is rather encouraging that the approaching first anniversary of Henryk Górecki’s death on 12 November has occasioned a flurry of activity in this country.  Firstly, there was a Górecki edition of BBC Radio 3’s Sunday evening programme ‘The Choir’, which was broadcast on 6 November.  This series, which is devoted to all aspects of the composition and performance of choral music, broadcast the opening song from Górecki’s first collection of folksong settings, Broad Waters (1979), his most famous and most recorded a cappella piece, Totus Tuus (1987), his set of Five Kurpian Songs (1999) and Amen (1975).  And the programme also included Górecki’s earliest choral work – this time with instruments – Epitafium (1958), a stylistic (Webernian) corrective to the popular image of Górecki as a composer interested only in slow modal music.  A few weeks ago, I recorded an interview for the programme alongside Roxanna Panufnik, the daughter of the Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik.  Friends tell me that they enjoyed the programme, especially those who knew nothing of Górecki’s music and life beforehand.  Unfortunately, I missed the broadcast as I was on a coach with the Polish Radio Choir from Kraków (see below).

Secondly, I was visited late on a dark and stormy night at the end of last week, here on the Cornish moors, by a team from Polish Television in Katowice, Górecki’s home city.  They’d driven from France that day and were going on subsequently to interview Górecki’s London publishers and to speak to Bob Bibby, the Englishman who discovered that the subject of the second movement of Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs had not died at the hands of the Gestapo, as had generally been feared, but had lived a full life, dying in 1999 (Guardian appreciation, 25 November 2010). I settled the Polish TV director, Violetta Rotter-Kozera, in front of a roaring log fire and we had an intense and warm-hearted discussion about Górecki’s music, life, personality and temperaments.  The programme (my hour or so will be cut down to a few minutes, I’m sure!) will probably be broadcast sometime early in 2012.

Thirdly, I’ve just come back from being ‘on tour’, with the Polish Radio Choir from Kraków, a promotion initiated by Ed McKeon of Third Ear.  It was my first such experience, and probably my last.  Even though this was a short, four-concert tour, I came away with a better understanding of the many and varied pressures that performers experience when daily on the move from one venue/hotel to another.  I was full of admiration for their unflappability and good humour.  This was nowhere more apparent than shortly after the start of the concert in Durham Cathedral, that solidly magnificent example of Romanesque architecture.  The peaceful prayer that is Totus Tuus was suddenly counterpointed by a barrage of deafening booms and bangs that seemed to be coming from right outside the building.  It was like a medieval siege, a terrifying bombardment.  It went on for over 15′.  The choir didn’t bat an eyelid, no voice trembled.  While the choir had no idea what was going on, we in the audience knew well enough.  It took a bit of explaining afterwards (November 5 customs can seem very strange to visitors to the UK).

The choir had flown into Liverpool the previous day and joined the tour coach for the first concert in Durham (Saturday night), on to London (Sunday lunchtime), Bristol (Monday evening) and Liverpool (Tuesday evening).  My role was to give three pre-concert talks, each of a different duration, before the first three concerts.  The choir was very welcoming and after the concert in Bristol asked me if I would become an honorary member of its Association of Artists and Friends, which came out of the blue and was very touching.

The Polish Radio Choir, under its conductor Artur Sędzielarz, is one of those rare commodities, a choir that is funded by a broadcaster.  In the UK, we are lucky to have the BBC Singers and some other European countries still invest in similar vocal groups for the sake of repertoires past and future.  It is a very fine ensemble.  They brought 29 singers and their textural blend was second-to-none.  Equally wonderful were the choir’s harmonic voicing and unfailingly clear articulation.  Dynamically, they encompassed the quietest of pianissimos and the most emphatic of fortissimos.  I was reminded of the extremist markings that Górecki used in his vocal-instrumental Ad Matrem (1971).  On the one hand, in that score he asked for moments that were ritmico-marcatissimo-energico-furioso-con massima passion e grande tensione.  On the other hand, elsewhere he wanted tranquillissimo-cantabilissimo-dolcissimo-affetuoso e ben tenuto e LEGATISSIMO.  The Polish Radio Choir brought such contrasts fully to life, especially in the Five Kurpian Songs, and I’m sure that Górecki would have been beaming at them had he been present.

It is a strange phenomenon in Górecki’s output that he makes little difference in his compositional approach to folksong settings and to church songs.  This is particularly evident in the overwhelmingly slow tempi and sustained vocal lines.  These demand extraordinary stamina and vocal evenness, which the Polish Radio Choir delivered effortlessly.  The programme moved from Totus Tuus, through the Five Kurpian Songs, Three Lullabies (1984, in Bristol and Liverpool only, although the first lullaby was sung as the encore in London), and the Song of the Katyń Families (2004).  The concerts ended with Come Holy Spirit (1988) and Amen.

For me, the outstanding piece was Song of the Katyń Families.  It lasts for barely 5′, yet its expressive power became more and more apparent at each subsequent performance.  Typically for Górecki, the piece takes a slightly oblique slant, setting a contemporary text that links the first line of the Polish national anthem with the memory of the Soviet slaughter of thousands of Polish army officers during World War II.  The piece’s lower overall tessitura made quite an impression at this stage in the concert.  When the basses dropped lower still, the harmonic resonance spoke volumes.  And when they moved down two further steps, the luminosity of the choir’s sound was breathtaking.  Song of the Katyń Families deserves as wide a recognition as Totus Tuus.

I wonder if the Polish Radio Choir’s unanimity and utter faithfulness to the spirit and letter of Górecki’s music, as well as their sensitivity to timbral colour, come not only from their collective musical sensibilities but also from their wide musical interests outside their choral work, which include – to take just three examples – musicology, cabaret and period instrument performance.  Whatever their secret ingredient is, it made for rivetting performances that elicited hugely enthusiastic audience responses.  I hope that the choir returns to the UK before too long.

…..

The Polish Radio Choir released a 2-CD recording of Górecki’s a cappella music in 2007.  It’s on the Polish Radio label, Polskie Radio PRCD 1104-1105.  It includes Broad Waters, Five Kurpian Songs, Come Holy Spirit, Song of the Katyń Families and Amen, plus the folksong My Vistula (1981) and Marian Songs (1985).

…..

For Rian Evans’s review of the Bristol Concert, see The Guardian (9 November 2011).

Filed under Audio, Górecki, Music Dissemination, Radio, TV & Video Tagged with , , , , ,

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