Gorecki: Kleines Requiem, Lerchenmusik - Reinbert De Leeuw (2011)

Henryk Gorecki (1933-2010) became best known for his Third Symphony, the ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ that became a hit in the 1990s, tapping into a new hunger in the listening public for serious new music that was nonetheless melodically inspired and spiritual in sensibility. These qualities can be readily discerned in much of the rest of his small and fastidious output. The Kleines Requiem für eine Polka (1993) is itself at once a profoundly serious work and a curiously elusive one, a blend of warm expressive directness with almost Brechtian alienation. It is scored for a chamber ensemble: like Henze’s late masterpiece, it is an instrumental Requiem, in which words are felt to be otiose to the direct expression of grief and consolation.

The Lerchenmusik (1984) taps a similarly elegiac vein with smaller forces and Classical restraint: clarinet, violin and piano. The interplay of fast tempos with sections so slow as to be virtually motionless is highly characteristic of Górecki. Like his penchant for extremes of loudness and softness, it suggests a stylistic debt to Messiaen, whom Górecki got to know when he went to study in Paris in the early 1960s, and whom he often singled out as one of the supreme figures in his musical pantheon. ‘After Messiaen’, he once declared, speaking about modern music in a rare television interview, ‘it’s finished for me.’

Composer: Henryk Mikolaj Górecki
Performer: Harmen de Boer, Larissa Groeneveld, Reinbert De Leeuw
Conductor: Reinbert De Leeuw
Orchestra/Ensemble: Schoenberg Ensemble

Reviews: It is well known that Henryk Górecki received worldwide fame practically overnight with the 1992 release on Nonesuch of his Symphony No. 3. The artists were the London Sinfonietta under David Zinman with Dawn Upshaw as soprano soloist and they were recorded in May 1991.

Though he composed the symphony as long ago as 1976, he was little known outside his native Poland until that rather freak occurrence. While he is probably still best known today for that symphony, the two works on the CD under review are far more typical of the composer’s style. The first of these, the Kleines Requiem, is the best place for a listener who knows only the Third Symphony to gain a real appreciation of Górecki’s music. The symphony with its three successive slow movements is very static in nature. The Requiem contrasts the static (first and last movements) with the dynamic (second and third). As Bernard Jacobson suggests in his very illuminating notes, the influence of Messiaen on Górecki with his contrasts of loud and soft is very apparent in both works. Jacobson also mentions Bartók and Janá?ek as composers who have similarities to Górecki, the latter in the use of incisive and lively rhythmic patterns. I hear a greater likeness to one of Górecki’s direct contemporaries, the Georgian Giya Kancheli whose music often emphasizes sudden dynamic contrasts.

Whereas much of Górecki’s music is very dark and serious, the Kleines Requiem für eine Polka contains humorous elements. This is notable in the third movement which is in fact a catchy polka. The work begins very quietly with the piano playing a simple tune with tubular bells accompanying softly. The violins enter with a melody over the piano. After about five minutes, the music suddenly gets loud but soon retreats to its earlier mood with the piano’s simple tune with bells. It ends quietly. The second movement breaks in without a pause and is loud and agitated with brass taking the lead. Then comes the comic polka led by the strings and winds with the piano playing the polka rhythm. The last movement returns to the quiet of the first with a bell sounding before the strings play a lyrical hymn. The bell and piano are in the background until the horn adds a quiet solo to the mix. It continues thus until near the end when the piano and distant bells make a passing reference to the opening of the first movement. Górecki composed the work for the performers on this disc, so one may justifiably call this recording authoritative. It is certainly well performed by the thirteen members of the ensemble, which includes flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, percussion, two violins, viola, cello and double bass. Of all the Górecki I’ve heard I find this the most interesting, as it does not outstay its welcome.

Lerchenmusik for clarinet, cello, and piano, on the other hand, can try one’s patience. It is nearly twice as long as the Requiem but lacks the sheer variety of the other work. It comprises three movements, each basically in a slow tempo. The first movement begins quietly in the lower register of the cello and for the first six minutes or so it remains quiet. Then the piano explodes with a series of loud incessantly repeated birdcalls over the cello - all very reminiscent of Messiaen. A couple of minutes later there is a new, loud pattern taken up by the clarinet. This also repeats and then combines with the birdcalls. The movement ends quietly and one is relieved that it is over. The second movement features the clarinet with a solo in the beginning that builds slowly until it too becomes loud and nearly unbearable. Luckily, the piano takes over later and the movement ends quietly. The three instruments come together in the finale with the piano playing repeated chords similar to those in the first movement of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. However, after about a minute of quiet chords, the music gets loud and there are more insistent avian noises. These alternate with the quiet chords and make this movement easier to digest than the others. There is a particularly beautiful passage starting at 3:36, where the Beethovenian repeated chords on the piano over a sustained cello line create a hymn-like atmosphere. And so it continues for some fifteen minutes with the quiet even restful music alternating with louder pounding chords on the piano. At one point Górecki quotes Beethoven directly, before the clarinet enters with a songful passage accompanied by cello and piano. The music dies away quietly, with the piano playing softly in a high register. Like the other work on the disc, one cannot imagine a better performance than the one here.

If you are a fan of Górecki, you will not need my recommendation. If, however, you have not been exposed to much of his music or only the Third Symphony, you may want to try another recording of the Kleines Requiem. David Zinman and the London Sinfonietta recorded it for Nonesuch, a disc that also contains the short and attractive Harpsichord Concerto, and the work entitled “Good Night” for soprano, alto flute, 5 tam-tams, and piano, with Dawn Upshaw as soloist. That disc perhaps offers the best sampling of Górecki’s music beyond the Third Symphony. The performances are as good as any, including the one of the Kleines Requiem on the present disc. Incidentally, the main theme in the Third Symphony’s first movement is rather similar to the one in the second movement of Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet. I have not read anywhere that Górecki intentionally borrowed it from Shostakovich.

One further note on the present disc: this is a reissue of material originally appearing on the Philips label and is offered at budget cost. The entire production, including Bernard Jacobson’s invaluable notes, is fully up to the standards of a full-priced CD. The timings on the back of the case, though, are inaccurate and I have listed the correct ones in the head-note above.