Cathartic and hauntingly beautiful, Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is an astonishing meditation on loss and transcendence.
This harmonic ‘spiritual minimalist’ composition is performed by Paraorchestra with soprano Victoria Oruwari and conducted by Charles Hazlewood.
With themes of motherhood, grief, and the heartache of war, each of the three movements features a Polish lament, including a message inscribed on the wall of a Gestapo prison cell from a teenage girl to her Mother, and a folk song about a mother who has lost her son in the Silesian civil war.
Sung in Polish, this evocative work brings tears and rousing joy; taking audiences on a spellbinding and uplifting journey through grief and solace.
Paraorchestra first performed A Symphony of Sorrowful songs with Charlotte Church at Glastonbury Cathedral as part of the Festival of Death and Dying in November 2018. It played Bath Abbey on Wednesday 8 December 2021 beneath Luke Jerram’s iconic Museum of the Moon.
