Gorecki: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

With text taken from a fifteenth-century lament of the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross, a prayer scratched onto the wall of a Gestapo prison cell in 1944, and a Polish folk song recounting a mother’s grief, Górecki weaves three deeply human stories into a work of extraordinary emotional intensity.

After its chart-topping success in the UK in the 90s, Górecki reflected on its success:

“Perhaps people find something they need in this piece of music, something they were missing. Something, somewhere had been lost to them. I feel that I instinctively knew what they needed.”