“In 1989, the record executive Robert Hurwitz attended a London performance of the Polish composer Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3, subtitled ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,’ ” writes William Robin in Sunday’s (6/11) New York Times. “ ‘I was just completely knocked out,’ he said in a recent interview…. He reached out to the young soprano Dawn Upshaw, who agreed to record the symphony with the conductor David Zinman and the London Sinfonietta for Mr. Hurwitz’s label, Nonesuch. ‘I think a lot of people might like this,’ Mr. Hurwitz recalled thinking, ‘and we might sell 25,000 or 30,000 copies.’ … Within a year of the album’s release in April 1992, it was selling about 10,000 units per day. Ultimately, Mr. Gorecki’s Third sold over a million records…. Mr. Gorecki had in his early work experimented with modernist techniques like serialism…. His Third Symphony represented a stylistic breakthrough: austerely plaintive, emotionally direct and steeped in medieval modes.… Mr. Gorecki’s symphony holds up as an impressive artistic achievement…. The first entrance of Ms. Upshaw in the Nonesuch recording, intoning a 15th-century Polish lament, maintains its original pathos. ‘The music is still timeless,’ [said] Ms. Upshaw.”
Posted June 12, 2017
