‘Sinfonia Varsovia’

The subtitle of Henryk Górecki’s Third Symphony, “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”, refers to the three texts sung by a soprano throughout the opera. A 15th-century lament of the Virgin Mary is followed by a text written on the wall of a Gestapo cell and signed by an 18-year-old woman. A Polish folk song about a mother looking for her dead son brings the symphony to a close. In an interview in 1992, against the backdrop of the civil war in Bosnia that reminded him of the Second World War and communism, Górecki said: “My third symphony is tragic, but not in the sense of a tragedy. I simply wanted to express great sorrow. A sorrow that burns within me, which I cannot shake off.” The soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska embodies the maternal grief and resilience in this work, accompanied by the Polish Sinfonia Varsovia.Violinist Josef Špaček adds Karol Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto to the programme.