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Music CD, 1992
Current format, Music CD, 1992, , Available .
Music CD, 1992
Current format, Music CD, 1992, , Available . Offered in 0 more formats
It is a testament to the beauty and hypnotic power of Gorecki's Third Symphony that this album lived up to, and even surpassed, the hype that surrounded its release. In the spring of 1993, it soared into the top ten of the British pop charts and topped classical music sales, lending sudden and phenomenal fame to this hitherto little-known composer of the Polish avant-garde. Yet this "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," as it is subtitled, is no lightweight crossover work, but a serious composition of quiet emotional force made up of monumental gestures, arching melodies, and massive, Brucknerian stretches of development. Gorecki sets three laments about motherhood -- including a 15th-century Polish prayer and a Polish folk song -- and creates a mystical musical journey from light into darkness and back. David Zinman directs the London Sinfonietta in a radiant performance, and soprano Dawn Upshaw sings the Polish texts with shimmering clarity.
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