Search Results - Górecki, Henryk
Henryk Górecki

Górecki was largely unknown outside Poland until the late 1980s. In 1992, 15 years after it was composed, a recording of his ''Symphony of Sorrowful Songs'' with soprano Dawn Upshaw and conductor David Zinman, released to commemorate the memory of those lost during the Holocaust, became a worldwide commercial and critical success, selling more than a million copies and vastly exceeding the typical lifetime sales of a recording of symphonic music by a 20th-century composer. Commenting on its popularity, Górecki said, "Perhaps people find something they need in this piece of music ... somehow I hit the right note, something they were missing. Something somewhere had been lost to them. I feel that I instinctively knew what they needed." This popular acclaim did not generate wide interest in Górecki's other works, and he pointedly resisted the temptation to repeat earlier success, or compose for commercial reward. Nevertheless, his music drew the attention of Australian film director Peter Weir, who used a section of Symphony No. 3 in his 1993 film ''Fearless''.
Apart from two brief periods studying in Paris and a short time living in Berlin, Górecki spent most of his life in southern Poland. Provided by Wikipedia