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„Tam, gdzie podążał Szymanowski, zmierzam i ja”

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Malecka T., Karcz B., Tyrała R., Zając A., Delimat W., Janicki J. J., Malik J., Sterczewska L., UPJPII i., Pasek W., Karcz B., Malik J., Sterczewska L., UPJPII i., Pasek W.

Pro Musica Sacra

2013

vol. 11

There has been no greater contrast of personality, biography, worldview, and lifestyle. And yet there is no end to similarities, proximities, even kinship; great was Górecki’s fascination with Szymanowski.First was the score of Beethoven’s Ninth, bought for the money earned by selling a ping-pong racket; but Górecki then spent his first savings on Chopin’s Impromptus and Szymanowski’s Mazurkas. He would recount later: “I still have these scores, and that is how my strange story begins: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Chopin’s Impromptus and Szymanowski’s Mazurkas.”28 Yet apart from Górecki’s fascination with Szymanowski music and oeuvre, there is another link still. Both artists fell in love with Podhale, the Tatra Mountains and the culture of the region; so much that its main spa, Zakopane, became their second home. This went hand in hand with their fascination with the music of Podhale.The focal point for Szymanowski’s impact on Górecki brings together two masterpieces of sacred music: Stabat Mater and Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.Stabat Mater is one of Szymanowski’s few religious works; Górecki’s Sorrowful Songs are one of the many sacred works written both before and after the Symphony. Yet they are both instances of the highest artistry, of the apogee in their author’s creative achievements.Outside explicit examples of correlation between the work of Szymanowski and Górecki, there is an analogy between them of a more general nature. Taking into account the historical situation in which the two composers lived and worked, and the meanders of Polish music of the 20th centuries, the stylistic breakthrough that took place both in Szymanowski – before his Stabat Mater – and in Górecki – before his Third Symphony – was of tantamount import to establish their rank and their position in the history of Polish music.

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s road to the Oratorio “Sanctus Adalbertus” in the context of the composer’s fascination with the person and teaching of St. John Paul II

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Malecka T.

Pro Musica Sacra

2023

vol. 21

49-66

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s profound personal religiousness became the source of his deep spiritual bond with the personality of Karol Wojtyła – Saint John Paul II. The relationship between the composer and the Pope was of a special nature. In 1977, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła commissioned a work from Henryk Mikołaj Górecki to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the death of St Stanislaus. The result was the oratorio Beatus Vir Op. 38, a psalm for baritone, mixed choir and orchestra. Since its premiere, the composer has been urged by the Pope to compose further works of religious music. This was to be a larger cycle dedicated to Polish saints. Only the oratorio on St Adalbert was written, the fate of which was unknown during the composer’s lifetime. Its manuscript was found in materials left behind by his son. The text of Sanctus Adalbertus is laconic, building up already at the level of words a specific drama typical of the composer. It is sung in Latin alternating with Polish (there is also a Czech variant, which is understandable given St Adalbert’s nationality), and, as so often in Górecki’s work, is based on thoughts taken from the Psalms. While the first three parts of the work can be said to be composed as a whole by ‘juxtaposing’ different sound models, different idioms repeated many times in an irregular manner peculiar to Górecki, the fourth part, with its clear three-part structure, is built in a processual manner. Górecki’s Gloria is derived, as it were, from the song Bogurodzica and tends towards it. In the maximally muted ending of the work, the melody returns, this time as if a reminder of it in the single, delicate strikes of the bells and grand piano leading to the utterance of the saint’s name: “Sanctus Adalbertus”. The work can be interpreted as a journey towards the quotation from the oldest Polish hymn – Bogurodzica (Mother of God), as a journey to the source – to the roots of a Polish national identity in times of rebirth.

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2 Malecka T.

1 Delimat W.

1 Janicki J. J.

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1 Pasek W.

1 Sterczewska L.

1 Tyrała R.

1 UPJPII i.

1 Zając A.

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„Tam, gdzie podążał Szymanowski, zmierzam i ja”

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s road to the Oratorio “Sanctus Adalbertus” in the context of the composer’s fascination with the person and teaching of St. John Paul II