Górecki’s Symphony No. 3



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Polish composer Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 (1976), for soprano and orchestra, is subtitled Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Each of the work’s three movements uses a spiritual or lamenting text drawn from different Polish sources. The first movement, excerpted here, uses a 15th-century religious text. This movement is constructed in the form of a canon, in which each group of instruments enters successively with the theme, heard here in its climax in the violins.

"Symphony No. 3, movement 1" by Henryk Górecki, performed by The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, from Górecki: Symphony No. 3 (Cat.# Naxos 8.550822) (c)1977 by PWM Edition, Krakow, Poland. Used by permission of Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. (p)1994 HNH International, Ltd. All rights reserved.

Appears in these articles:

Minimalism (music); Górecki, Henryk Mikolaj; Poland; Canon (music); Symphony

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