Read it all will not cut it on this one, you need to listen to it all.
The one section that you absolutely must not miss is this one:
One person who was very moved by Gorecki’s third symphony was a 14-year old girl from Sweden ”” a burn victim who wrote a letter to the composer, telling him that his music was the only thing that kept her alive. Gorecki reads from the letter in his interview.
There is an audio link where Gorecki reads the letter through a translator–it made me cry–KSH. (Hat tip: Elizabeth)
A beautiful account of how even one artistic creation can touch many, many hearts.
Just before Christmas 1995, I visited the house of a friend for dinner who was playing the “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” on his stereo when we arrived. After listening for no more than 45 seconds, I asked him the identity of this haunting music he was playing. It became that night and remains to this day one of my three favorite pieces of classical music – equaled only Beethoven’s Seventh and Mozart’s Requiem. I asked my family to purchase it for me for Christmas. No on did, so I went and bought it for myself. My wife was very pregnant at the time and was having trouble sleeping. So she had kicked me onto the couch for the duration. The night I bought the CD, I laid on the couch in the dark and listened to it twice trough. It’s a moment I will never forget.
“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” is a powerful and haunting piece – powerful and haunting in its simplicity. It displays the silent tears of unrequited grief with relentless and gentle efficiency. The tears of the dying. The tears of the hopeless. The tears of despair. The tears known but to God.
carl
Gorecki has a number of choral works that often appear in the anthem cycles of church’s with strong music programs.