Henryk Mikolaj Górecki (1933-2010)
Symphony No 3 ‘Sorrowful Songs’, Op 36 (1982)
Pieces in Olden Style (1962-63)
Totus tuus, Op 60 (1987)
Stefania Woytowicz (soprano)
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra / Wlodzimierz Kamirski
Krakow Philharmonic / Roland Bader
Krakow Choral Society / Malgorzata Orawska
rec. 1982, Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin: 1990, Krakow: 1996, Krakow
Alto ALC1494 [64]
I could pretend that I’ve heard every available recording of Górecki’s Third Symphony but, quite rightly, you wouldn’t believe me. Over the years they have sprouted like mushrooms. Donald Runnicles has recorded it in Atlanta at convincing tempi, Adrian Leaper with his Gran Canaria orchestra, John Axelrod too – painfully slowly – with Danish forces, whilst the Sinfonia Varsovia under Alain Altinoglu have had a go, and so too has Takua Yuasamphon with the Adelaide orchestra and Yvonne Kenny, not to forget the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Antoni Wit. There are many other Polish recordings too. And then, of course, there’s the famous Elektra Nonesuch recording that made the work internationally famous – though it was certainly not the first recording – with Dawn Upshaw and David Zinman.
It’s exhausting enough going through the current choices without actually having to listen to them, so I’m going to make things simple and note that Alto has sifted wisely, exhuming this 1982 Koch-Schwann recording by Stefania Woytowicz with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Wlodzimierz Kamirski. Woytowicz has recorded this at least three times – with Kamirski but also, for Olympia, with the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra of Katowice and Jerzy Katlewicz and with the Symphonieorchester des Südwestfunks-Baden-Baden and Ernest Bour in 1985, now on Apex, and the slowest of her readings. She and Bour had premiered the work back in 1977.
She is the most centrally recommendable soprano I’ve heard in this symphony, and I’ve certainly heard Upshaw, Kenny, Zofia Kilanowicz and Christine Brewer. With Kamirski in Berlin she found a compatible and companionable spirit for whom expressive density isn’t necessarily equated with marmoreal tempi. Upshaw, the London Sinfonietta and Zinman take 54 minutes and whilst they may highlight more orchestral detail and clarity they’re neither more expressive nor more cumulatively convincing than the 45 minutes that the Berlin team take. Kamirski measures the music’s rise and fall, its texture and mass with exemplary control. Though Woytowicz has a strong vibrato it is never intrusive and its opulence graces the music with an appropriate sense of candour and humanity, lightening for the B section of the slow movement with exemplary control. She brings a consoling warmth throughout, and not least in the finale. Here she is heard at tempi that are far faster than those she was soon to take with Bour – seven minutes quicker overall – which may or may not reflect the tempi they took at the work’s première.
The remaining works are ex-Koch-Schwann as well. Three Pieces in Olden Style offer expression and concision – the three last no more than eight or so minutes. The Krakow Philharmonic play finely, especially at pp. Still, these are charming but relatively faceless examples of the composer’s art. Totus tuus was composed in 1997 for the third visit to his homeland of Pope John Paul II. It’s a prayer to the Virgin Mary, written for unaccompanied chorus, opening with the Pope’s words after the attempt to assassinate him; ‘Totus tuus sum, Maria’ (I am wholly yours, Maria). The text of the prayer is printed in the body of the booklet notes.
If you need a centrally recommendable version of the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs you are spoilt for choice, but this reissue is not only beautifully performed and sympathetically recorded but offers excellent value for money.
Jonathan Woolf
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