Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs passed Sting, Madonna and Nirvana in British and American music charts
It all started when David Drew, the then direc-tor responsible for expanding the catalogue of London publishing house Boosey & Hawkes, met Henryk at the Warsaw Autumn Festival during the first performance of “Lerchenmusik” in 1985. He went back to London intrigued with the unusual personality and immense charisma of this supposedly simple guy from Silesia. He took home a small pile of music scores from PWM (Polish Music Publishing House). He began studying them.
The first was a copy of Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) opus 36.
One page, then another. Very low double basses, then cellos, then violas… A dark canon being built up by the strings. And suddenly – a penetrating soprano. David Drew jumped up and ran to see his boss.
Tony Fell, the then head of the publishing house, listened to the agitated soliloquy about the discovery David Drew made in Poland.
“This is a revelation! It’s magic, it’s an absolute force!” Drew was persuading him. “This’ll be a sensation, this guy’s a volcano! And barely anybody knows him in his own country…”
Indeed, there was still an embargo on Górecki’s mu-sic in Poland. The National Philharmonics’ musicians were still resentful. Symphony No. 3 had been in fact released on a longplay in Poland, but it wasn’t easy to find the recording by Jerzy Katlewicz and Stefania Woytowicz. In a word, Górecki didn’t exist in his own country.
David Drew had a good intuition. A dog’s olfactory sense – Szabelcio might phrase it that way, he who also prided himself in having the same talent. Tony Fell sensed good business.
He immediately got in touch with the heads of PWM Muzyczne in Kraków. Then with Górecki himself, who was nonetheless sceptical. Once a publisher from the West was interested in him in the 1970s. The composer got very excited because Schott had a reputation of being the main and oldest publisher in the world, together with Breitkopf & Härtel. But it all resulted in just a few editions of his works and that was that. The end.
But this time it was meant to be different.
The final agreement between Górecki, PWM and Boosey & Hawkes was signed in 1988. They signed a co-edition contract for 10 years. During this period the copyright was supposed to remain with PWM and the Polish publisher was to take care of the distribution of Henryk’s scores in the Eastern Bloc, while Boosey was to promote his music in the West.
At around the same time, the British pianist Paul Crossley thought back on Symphony No. 3. At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, he was the artistic direc-tor of the London Sinfonietta. Crossley first heard Henryk’s piece in 1983 in Berlin, when he entered a music shop and saw his record. He was mesmer- ised. With flushed cheeks he played the recording to his friends in London: to the Sinfonietta’s director Michael Vyner, and to the conductor and co-founder of the group, David Atherton. They wanted to start playing Górecki in the UK. (…)
Atherton conducted Symphony of Sorrowful Songs for the first time in the 1987-88 concert season. He persuaded the Australian soprano Margaret Field to collaborate, as well as two well-known British sym-phony orchestras: the BBC Radio Orchestra and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Symphony No. 3 began its career in England. (…)
Meanwhile David Drew got cracking. Symphony No. 3, with his vigorous support, travelled from hand to hand. Even before Boosey signed the official agreement with Górecki, it had found its way into the hands of the rock legend David Bowie. In June 1987, the British singer played the Third Symphony’s extensive fragments during a break at his London concert at Wembley. Bowie’s fans, hypnotised with Górecki’s music, listened. Pretty much no one among the seven-ty thousand people in the audience left the room.
John Sherba, a Kronos Quartet violinist from Cali-fornia, was in the audience that day. This is how he described the impression made by Symphony No. 3 written by the unknown composer from Poland: “Yes, during the intermission this incredible music came on… (…) And everybody’s reaction, including my own, was – what is this? It was the Third Symphony! David Bowie knew the piece very early… It made a great im-pact on lots of people…”.
Excerpt translated by Anna Błasiak
Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs passed Sting, Madonna and Nirvana in British and American music charts
Translation rights: Znak Publishers, bolinska@znak.com.pl
Górecki: A Stubborn Genius is a biography covering the entire lifespan of the composer, who died in 2010 and whose Symphony of Sorrowful Songs passed Sting, Madonna and Nirvana in British and American music charts and was used in twenty films; its recording has sold a million copies.
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and his music figure most significantly in this book, but the author also describes the political background (especially the realities of socialist Poland), which heavily influenced the life of the protagonist. The atmosphere of places where the composer lived is brilliantly conveyed, especially that of Silesia, where he hailed from. The reader discovers much about the musical circles Górecki moved in – about his teachers, friends, pupils and important music festivals.
Maria Wilczek-Krupa has succeeded in describing the complexity of the composer’s personality. On the one hand, we are presented with evidence of Górecki’s (titular) improbable stubbornness, manifesting itself in his drive to pursue his goals despite numerous obstacles. We find out that it is true – although quite unbelievable – that young Górecki was forbidden to touch the piano and he only learned to play it when he was eighteen. He gave up his teaching job to study music composition at the age of 22, despite gaps in his musical education. Moreover, he struggled with various illnesses all his life. On the other hand, we get examples of the composer’s difficult, fiery temperament. He was easily set off, he liked to offend people and was able to sever years-long acquaintances.
Even if Henryk Mikołaj Górecki didn’t achieve commercial success, this biography still serves as an example of a life fulfilled and evidence of his uncompromising fealty to his art. To her account, the author has previously published a well-received biography of yet another composer, Wojciech Kilar. I am thus convinced that this book is also bound to succeed.
Andrzej Mirek, translated by Anna Błasiak
Selected samples
She climbed her first peaks in a headscarf at a time when women in the mountains were treated by climbers as an additional backpack. It was with her that female alpinism began! She gained recognition in a spectacular way. The path was considered a crossing for madmen. Especially since the tragic accident in 1929, preserved … Continue reading “Halina”
First, Marysia, a student of an exclusive private school in Warsaw’s Mokotów district, dies under the wheels of a train. Her teacher, Elżbieta, tries to find out what really happened. She starts a private investigation only soon to perish herself. But her body disappears, and the only people who have seen anything are Gniewomir, a … Continue reading “Wound”
A young girl, Regina Wieczorek, was found dead on the beach. She was nineteen years old and had no enemies. Fortunately, the culprit was quickly found. At least, that’s what the militia think. Meanwhile, one day in November, Jan Kowalski appears at the police station. He claims to have killed not only Regina but also … Continue reading “Penance”
The year is 1922. A dangerous time of breakthrough. In the Eastern Borderlands of the Republic of Poland, Bolshevik gangs sow terror, leaving behind the corpses of men and disgraced women. A ruthless secret intelligence race takes place between the Lviv-Warsaw-Free City of Gdańsk line. Lviv investigator Edward Popielski, called Łysy (“Hairless”), receives an offer … Continue reading “A Girl with Four Fingers”
This question is closely related to the next one, namely: if any goal exists, does life lead us to that goal in an orderly manner? In other words, is everything that happens to us just a set of chaotic events that, combined together, do not form a whole? To understand how the concept of providence … Continue reading “Order and Love”
The work of Józef Łobodowski (1909-1988) – a remarkable poet, prose writer, and translator, who spent most of his life in exile – is slowly being revived in Poland. Łobodowski’s brilliant three- volume novel, composed on an epic scale, concerns the fate of families and orphans unmoored by the Bolshevik Revolution and civil war and … Continue reading “Ukrainian Trilogy: Thickets, The Settlement, The Way Back”
