At the “Crux” of Henryk Gorecki’s Totus Tuus, Op. 60: Signification of Polish Catholic Marian Devotion

• Authors: William M. Helmcke
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

Henryk Górecki was a devout Polish Catholic composer. He testified that many of his compositions refer to Bogurodzica, a medieval Polish hymn pertaining to Marian devotion. Furthermore, Górecki himself wrote the first seven notes of Bogurodzica on a compositional sketch. This act strongly indicates that the first seven notes of Bogurodzica signify its sum. Consequently, the article has argued that Górecki derived three motives from the first seven notes of Bogurodzica and transformed them into musical signifiers of signified Polish Catholic Marian devotion in Totus Tuus. These motives include a descending fourth derived from Bogurodzica notes 3-6; a verticalization of the fourth; incomplete neighbor from Bogurodzica notes 1-2 and complete neighbor from Bogurodzica notes 5-7; and a voice exchange that visually depicts the Christian Cross as Augenmusik. The Bogurodzica-basei motives thoroughly saturate the crux of the composition. Within the sacred pitch space of Totus Tuus Górecki, the high priest of Holy Minimalism, delivers a profoundly moving autobiographical homily preaching the musical signification of Marian devotion.

Keywords

PL

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki; Totus Tuus; Polish; 20th-century; Minimalism; Sacred Music; Pope John Paul II; Homophony; Motive; Augenmusik

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology
• Year: 2015
• Issue: 14
• Pages: 136-150

Dates

published

2018-10-17

Contributors

author

William M. Helmcke

• is a Ph.D. candidate in Music Theory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Fulbright Scholar (2011-2012) to Poland. He holds degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Minnesota. He has taught courses at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; Williams College; Hampshire College; College of Saint Benedict/St. John’s University; and University of Minnesota. He has also taught music in the public schools of Berlin, Germany and Southern California. William has presented papers at meetings of the International Congress on Musical Signification in Krakow, Poland; the Société Française d’Analyse Musicale (The French Society for Musical Analysis) in Strasbourg, France; the American Comparative Literature Association in Cambridge, Massachusetts; GAMMA-UT in Austin, Texas; and the AP Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington. He has published and forthcoming articles in the United States in the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy and Music Educators Journal; in France in Analyse Musicale; and in Poland in International Congress on Musical Signification XI Conference Proceedings. His research interests include Schenkerian analysis, music theory pedagogy, and Polish music.

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