Henryk Gorecki Antoni Wit Polish Radio Orchestra amp Chorus Katowice - Grecki Symphony No 2 Copernican Beatus Vir (3 tracks) +Album Reviews

Intense, beautiful, and disturbing 20th century music...

ewomack | MN USA | 06/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD is an absolute steal at the current price. The works within contain numerous surprises of harmony, dissonance, orchestral, and choral music. Though, as everyone knows, the Polish composer Górecki (now in his seventies) attained international fame with his 3rd Symphony, his skill as a composer receives an ominous display on this disc.

The second symphony, written to mark Nicolaus Copernicus' 500th birthday in 1972, contains just as much emotion as Górecki's far more popular third symphony. But it's not too difficult to figure out why the second didn't make the charts: the first movement blares out a rhythmic hammer blow timpanic cacophony. It conjures up images of huge objects inexorably shifting and changing while the helpless listener sits in raptured awe. The music of the planets shifting, descending, or presenting themselves in full view slaps the listener right in the cochleas. It's not restful nor peaceful: it's disturbing. Here lies a representation of what the Copernican revolution of the 15th century might have felt like: Pregnant with strife, doubt, challenges, accusations, violent arguments, heresy, the very dignity of humankind at stake. No serenity, no calm summer day. A revolution is underway. The entrance of the choir towards the end of the movement provides a knock-down sonic experience. Something unavoidable has happened and the listener gets transported to that experience.

By startling contrast, the second movement provides the listener with a calm, peaceful, heartbreakingly beautiful landscape with which to ponder the violence that preceded it. Fans of Górecki's Third symphony will likely love this movement. Copernicus' own words float above the bubbling strings which wax and wane with intensity. The movement fades out slowly and almost silently. A relaxation of almost insurmountable tension fills the relatively harmonic and lovely second movement. Apparently the happening of the first movement has ended peacefully.

This symphony presents challenges that the third doesn't touch. The range of emotions is startling and even unnerving at times. The juxtaposition of the two movements creates deep meaning. Add to this a monumental historical event and a great symphony emerges. It also points the way towards the Third (finished some four years later in 1976).

"Beatus Vir" from 1979 opens the disc with over 30 minutes of gorgeous vocal work. It doesn't contain the dissonance of the second symphony, but the intensity rises and falls in a similar manner. The entire disc sounds classical yet modern. The music demonstrates simplicity, beauty, complexity, and meaning. One listen will not reveal all this music has to offer.

Górecki apparently deserves the acclaim he had garnered for his compositional skills. This very very very low-priced CD will leave listeners wanting more from one of our greatest living composers."

The other side of Henryk Gorecki

Grady Harp | Los Angeles, CA United States | 08/03/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As is often the case when a piece of classical music "catches on with the public" the composer is disregarded by the cognescenti as "too accessible" at best, or "banal" at worst. Such is the case of Gorecki who surprised the world when his 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (#3)' became a best selling album some 10 years ago in the hands of David Zinman and Dawn Upshaw. Rarely has a contemporary classical piece has such an immediate and persistent positive effect on the consuming public. Yes, other composers' works have now become part of many movie scores (Barber's 'Adagio for Strings', Orff's 'Carmina Burana', Albioni's plagent music for organ and strings to mention only a few), but Gorecki's Symphony rose in popularity because it spoke directly to the heart of a saddened world without the need for visual distractions on film. Now we are finally able to hear more of Gorecki's earlier works, music that is more demanding of the listener but equally as satisfying to the need to give utterances to the unutterable. His Symphony #2 is subtitled 'Copernican' because it seeks to musically explore the universe as seen by Polish astronomer Copernicus who forever changed man's view of the universe. Having been introduced to this symphony live in a concert hall in Amsterdam I was at first disappointed by the lack of spaciousness when the massive sound blocks of Gorecki are confined to this disc. But repeated hearings dispell that problem as the magnitude of the music simply takes over without overwhelming. The first movement is typical Gorecki blocks of sound moving slowly as though they seem at the core of something that is to come. In the second movement those promises are met by the ever expanding circles of sound with the full orchestra and the voices of baritone and soprano and chorus. Indeed the music seems to travel to the edge of nowhere and beyond in an atmosphere of ethereal beauty. The chorus and soloists are especially successful in creating the exquisite awe of the space of the universe. But in the end of this mighty work the orchestral seamless expansion of a single chord gathers us in flight to the edges of eternity. Magnificently written and performed music.Also included on this disc is the 'Beatus Vir' written for orchestra, chorus and solo baritone by Gorecki as an homage to his countryman Pope John Paul II, a commission from the Vatican for the Polish Pope's return visit to Poland in 1979. The text is from the Psalms and is faithful to the the utter submission of man to the omnipotence of the creator. The lush sound is enhanced by the use of bells and glockenspiel and the overall splendor of this very simple work is one of great dignity and holiness. Andrej Dobber is the resplendent baritone soloist."

Interesting piece, nicely performed

cmcclune | Seattle, WA | 10/01/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Most people, I suspect, are familiar with Gorecki through his 3rd Symphony. His 2nd is not quite as accesible as the 3rd, but is quite rewarding in its own way. A touch more dissonant, perhaps, but it contains a lot of the same slowly building sequences and gradually increasing dynamics. It's definitely music that should be paid attention to as opposed to played in the background. The performance is quite competent and somewhat idomatically Polish. Although the sound is not always perfect and the performance is occasionally shaky, this disc is great value for money and an excellent choice for people interested in further exploring Gorecki's orchestral writing."

Go down into human suffering

Jacques COULARDEAU | OLLIERGUES France | 04/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Beatus Vir", 1979, after the election of Pope John Paul II, the first Polish Pope, the first non-Italian Pope for quite a long time. This fundamental work is supposed to express through some verses chosen in the Psalms the full confidence and trust of man in God. That was a time when Poland had to live through several difficult periods, and even one full decade of agitation, submission or resistance. The communist order was running on its very last leg and the road had not been paved lately, so the trip to the gate out of this pseudo-socialism was rough, chaotic and definitely full of discomfort and pain. This "Beatus Vir" expresses this atmosphere, this desire and dream that was no promise in 1979 though it was an absolute certainty. The choice of a baritone to sing these verses is one of the best choices that could be made. It is deep enough to reverberate with the suffering and the sadness of reality. And yet it is not too deep to become unfathomable and desperate. The choir of course provides the baritone with the deep and versatile forest of life, of a life under some kind of limited freedom. And it creates the continuo the baritone needs to go up and reach the sky of hope and the future. At times, for instance with "Domine Deus meus es tu", Gorecki recreates some of the darkest pages of Bach's "Saint John's Passion", and yet you can feel a modernity that was not present in Bach's music. The modernity of the holocaust, of the sudden realization that there is no truth left, nothing but points of view, no search possible for truth, only the cultivation of our points of view in self-righteousness and absolute tolerance and cooperation. Who could have thought that after the fall of communistic fundamentalism, a new narrow-minded fundamentalistic policy would fall onto Poland and this time within and from the Christian inspiration, which is a pure treachery against Jesus, a twist in the road to light and even a rent in the fabric of life. This music reminds us of the fact that suffering must lead to light, light for everyone and salvation for all, Even for the Saul centurions who may meet with divine inspiration on the road to Damascus. Unluckily in our new unipolar world one fundamentalism is pushed aside by another. Too bad. Gorecki's music is still perfectly pertinent, to the point, true to the core of life today in a completely new situation. New Berlin Walls have to fall. Jericho is always standing somewhere self-justified within its fortified walls that some divine or human trumpets will have to make fall and crumble. Gorecki is the voice from beyond Auschwitz and Jericho. Symphony N°2 leads us even beyond these walls and back to Lot's house in which a stranger, a visitor is dining, wanted by the populace outside in the street against the laws of hospitality. What can Copernicus and his re-devising of the cosmos mean to us to day? Do we need a new copernican cosmic revolution of the mind? For sure, and music can express the dire straits we will have to go through to get there, in that unknown country. The most frightening thing about any wall is that beyond it lies or stands the unknown and this may frighten many who could help push the wall down. What and who may this wall fall onto? We don't know. What and who may this wall liberate in its fall? We don't know. What legions of hostile fiends or loving friends may overrun us and choke or crush us to death with hatred or with love of a species we do not even know? Beyond the gate of the future will we enter and cross Auschwitz anew or some messianic Jerusalem? And what proportion of the human race will have to perish in burning sulfur for that maybe messianic or maybe Shoahic Jerusalem to let us come in? The music of this symphony is so deeply somber that we just wonder if the world is not once and for all covered up by some lead lid that leaves no escape not even to the mind. Yet Gorecki composed this symphony in 1972 when the Poles were not even dreaming of Solidarnosc or Lech Walesa. So why should the road and the gate not lead to some better world? Maybe after all work makes you really free, in spite of all the perversions of this idea, be they fascistic or communistic. Let's believe this in our postmodern dream of what reality could lead to. The alliance of the baritone and the soprano is a superb embodiment of all this sadness in front of an unknown and unknowable future. Music is trying to dominate history with beauty. But, though the beauty will survive, the music will never make history.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

"

OBSERVATIONS FROM A MUSIC LOVER

Alfredo R. Villanueva | New York, NY United States | 04/03/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I came to Gorecki via an excerpt from his Simphony of Sorrows played on the radio. I knew I had found still another composer that spoke directly to me, and I am on my fifth album now. For lovers of spiritual and choral music, you cannot go wrong with Goreki. Naxos does an excelent job, as usual."

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CD Reviews

	Henryk Gorecki, Antoni Wit, Polish Radio Orchestra & Chorus Katowice Górecki: Symphony No. 2 Copernican; Beatus Vir Genre: Classical Track Listings (3) - Disc #1 Beatus Vir, Op.38 Sym No.2 'Copernican', Op.31: First Movt Sym No.2 'Copernican', Op.31: Second Movt
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