Classical Music Reviews
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Articles from Sequence II:
MAHLER Kindertotenlieder
GRECKI Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
PENDERECKI A Polish Requiem. The Dream of Jacob
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a survey of contemporary composers
HENRYK MIKOLAJ GRECKI (b.1933)
Symphony No.3, op.36 (1976) |
Composed in Katowice in 1976 by the Polish composer, Henryk Grecki, it belongs to the group of music called Spiritual Minimalism. The Symphony has a prayer-like quality, is slow in tempo and uses very little material to "grow" huge musical structures. While modern and "postmodern" music still retained its experimental, dissonant and "inaccessible" reputation, the "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" radiated within its darkness a powerful and universal light. Its simple harmonies spoke of its simple messages, its need to tell the world of its terrible story but also its prayer of hope.
The three movements are marked "Lento". This hints immediately at the profound slowness and meditative angst of the work. The first movement, 27 minutes in length, is to be played "sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile" (sustained and tranquil, in a song-like manner). Beginning in the darkest of the dark, the double basses lead the strings in a great canon of deep sorrow. As the music rises four octaves through the celli, violas and violins, one can feel the immense sadness of the composer. The souls of the dead float in their hundreds and thousands by us, invisible in the darkness, marked only by the music as it gains in intensity. And yet, within the blackness and the tragedy, there always lies the hint of hope, asking you to listen on, to hear the tale.
Nestled in the heart of the movement is a 15th century Polish prayer known as the Lamentation of the Holy Cross. Suddenly the strings fade. Heralded ominously by an orchestral piano, the Mother (of Christ), accompanied by floating chords, begs her dying son to speak to her:
My son, chosen and loved,
Charged with hope, yet aware of the terrible fate of her son, the Mother sings with heartwrenching power, climaxing in a great paean which brings back the 8-part string canon. This time, it moves in reverse, beginning on violins and descending into the basses. To the quiet tolling of the piano, everything fades into oblivion.
The music darkens. Deep underneath the Gestapo headquarters in Zakopane, inside Cell No.3, on 26th September 1944, the then 18-year-old Helena Wanda Blazusiakwna scratched this prayer to the Queen of Heaven on one of the stone walls that imprisoned her. In a voice of gloom, Helena asks her Mother not to cry for her, thus linking this prayer to the previous where she mourns her dying son. Out of the darkness, the ringing radiance of the opening theme returns as the soprano calls out to "Mamo" (Mother). In music which weaves subtly between misery and hope, the great current of love in all its joy and pain melds together mother and child, child and mother. The movement ends with the soprano praying, reciting "Zdrowa Mario", the equivalent of "Ave Maria" in Polish. Hail Mary.
Never more
He lies in the grave
Although the texts here are implicitly Christian, the theme of motherhood and of maternal love is universal. Indeed, very few symbols are as culturally universal as that of the Mother. Remarkably thus, with reference to the painting of "Lemminkainen's Mother" above, the story from The Kalevala also depicts her looking for the body of her murdered son. Fortunately for Lemminkainen, through his mother's unrelenting faith and love, she eventually recovers his shattered body, re-assembles it and brings him back to life.
Although the famous "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" is known to commemorate the holocaust of Auschwitz during World War II, if you look at its texts, its central source of poetic power is the theme of motherhood.
Above right: Detail from "Virgin with Cloak Outspread". 15th century.
Below: "Lemminkainen's Mother" (1897) by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. Another depiction of maternal love, based on a story from the Finnish epic, The Kalevala.
Let your mother share your wounds
And since, my dear son,
I have always kept you in my heart,
And loyally served you,
Speak to your mother,
make her happy ,
Though, my cherished hope,
you are now leaving me.
No, Mother, do not weep,
Most chaste Queen of Heaven
Help me always.
Hail Mary.
Where has he gone,
My dearest son?
Killed by the harsh enemy, perhaps,
In the rebellion.
You bad people,
In the name of the Holy God,
Tell me why you killed
My dear son.
Will I have his protection,
Even if I weep
My old eyes away,
Or if my bitter tears
Were to make another River Oder,
They would not bring back
My son to life.
I know not where
Though I ask people
Everywhere
Perhaps the poor boy
Lies in a rough trench
Instead of lying, as he might,
In a warm bed.
But here, in the reality of the Holocaust, the Mother cannot find her boy. She traverses great distances, as portrayed in the music with its insistent ostinato. Resigned, she asks the song-birds of God to sing for him, and beseeches the flowers to make for him a bed of peace for which he may sleep forever. By her love, the music surges into the radiant luminosity of A major - transcending all cultures, all peoples, all places, all time.
Sing for him,
Little song-birds of God,
For his mother
Cannot find him.
And God's little flowers,
May you bloom all around
So that my son
May sleep happily.
This article is dedicated to my mother, and my late grandmother whom I miss deeply; as well as all mothers of the world, and those who have lost their mothers.
Selected Recordings:
ELEKTRA NONESUCH 7559-79282-2. [53'44"] full-price. Click here for review.
NAXOS 8.550822. [66'05"] budget-price. Coupled with Three Pieces in Old Style. Click here for review.
162: 8.5.98. up.12.9.1999 Chia Han-Leon