Listen to what I found!! Lento et largo  Tranquillissimo “Sympone of sorrowful Songs“by Henryk Gorecki, sung by Ingrid Perruche… (for Hannablue!)

THE SECOND movement, Lento
Symphony No.3, op.36 (1976)
Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

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.

Composed in Katowice in 1976 by the Polish composer, Henryk Gorecki, 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,
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.

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 SECONDmovement, Lento e largo – tranquillissimo, begins with the radiant theme which has made it so famous. A simple rising and falling motif, it makes all the more poignant the words of the movement’s text. No, Mother, do not weep, Most chaste Queen of Heaven Help me always. Hail Mary. 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 Blazusiak�wna 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. THE FINAL movement, Lento – cantabile semplice, begins in resignation. The text is a folksong, depicting a Mother seeking the body of her dead son. 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. Never more 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. He lies in the grave 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. 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. 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. text by Chia Han-Leon