Gorecki: Symphony No. 3

This album, which catapulted Polish composer Henryk Gorecki to into the international spotlight, takes texts born in pain and turns them into statements of affirmation through the use of music that ebbs and flows in mystic minimalism. The clear voice of soprano Dawn Upshaw, singing the Polish texts, is a large part of the success of this particular recording, but the music, contemporary without either dissonance or movie-music mawkishness, clarifies and uplifts the words. This is a moving and essential element of the modern repertoire.

Composed in 1976, Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” describes the anguished, raw pain of separation and death with music of a timeless, almost primitive quality. Its performance demands an emotional directness from both orchestra and soprano soloist, and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki, is in searing form alongside the fragile, unvarnished voice of Beth Gibbons, singer of UK trip-hop pioneers Portishead. Gibbons intones the tragedy of each movement with an earthbound purity and honesty, and her voice carries aloft the almost unbearably powerful second movement. That this is a live recording makes her performance all the more impressive.

Composed in 1976, Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” describes the anguished, raw pain of separation and death with music of a timeless, almost primitive quality. Its performance demands an emotional directness from both orchestra and soprano soloist, and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki, is in searing form alongside the fragile, unvarnished voice of Beth Gibbons, singer of UK trip-hop pioneers Portishead. Gibbons intones the tragedy of each movement with an earthbound purity and honesty, and her voice carries aloft the almost unbearably powerful second movement. That this is a live recording makes her performance all the more impressive.

Górecki's Third Symphony has become legend. Composed in 1976, it's always had its champions and admirers within the contemporary music world, but in 1993 it found a new audience of undreamt-of proportions. A few weeks after its release, this Elektra Nonesuch release not only entered the top 10 in the classical charts, but was also riding high in the UK Pop Album charts. It became the biggest selling disc of music by a contemporary classical composer.