Henryk Mikołaj Górecki: Choral Music

H E N R Y K Gó r e c k i choR a l mu s i c N at i o n a l You t h C h oi r of G r e at B r i ta i n

Mike Brewer

ToTU S TUU S

TOTUS TUUS

HENRYK GÓRECKI (1933-2010)

CHORAL MUSIC

National Youth Choir of Great Britain Mike Brewer conductor 1 Euntes Ibant Et Flebant Op. 32 2 Lobgesang Op. 76

Bethan Thomas glockenspiel 3 Totus Tuus Op. 60

Salve, Sidus Polonorum Op. 72 4 Per Merita Sancti Adalberti ’ ety 5 Swi ˛ Wojciechu Patronie Nasz Drogi 6 Salve, Sidus Polonorum Julian Wilkins piano Hannah-May Elmasry, Sarah Thornhill, Alisha Hart percussion Rosie Miller organ 7 Amen Op. 35

The musical trajectory of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (1933-2010) seemed, until the 1970s, likely to continue to be within the context of the Polish avant-garde with which he had so far been associated. Composers such as Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994), Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933) in particular, and to a lesser extent Kazimierz Serocki (1922-81) and Tadeusz Baird (1928-81), had acquired a reputation both in Poland and abroad for their own particular approaches to serialism and the challenges of producing modernist art under a repressive regime. Like his contemporary Wojciech Kilar (b. 1932), however, Górecki found during these years a need to simplify his art, to make it more transparent and immediately communicative. He discovered the means to bring this about in the folk music and sacred traditions of his native country, once declaring that ‘folk music is everything’.

In retrospect, one may see that Górecki’s work always contained the seed of such a development. His Choros I for strings (1964) already makes use of very limited pitch material, and is obsessively repetitive, and in the orchestral Refren (1965), we see a work poised between the past and the future, its jagged harmonic vocabulary offset by textural transparency and slow chorale-like writing.

In Three Pieces In Olden Style (1963) and Old Polish Music (1969), his turn towards modal material and increasing interest in the roots

of Polish art are obvious. In the sequence of works written in 1971 and 1972, Do Matki, Two Sacred Songs and the Symphony no. 2, ‘Copernican’, the clarity of Górecki’s new vision is unmistakeable.

Euntes Ibant Et Flebant dates from 1972, the year in which the composer was working on his Copernicus Symphony. This setting of two verses from Psalms 126 and 95 is the first in what was to become a long series of unaccompanied sacred works, subsequently to be revealed as being absolutely central to Górecki’s art. Its simplicity of means, especially bearing in mind its date of composition, is astounding. It is built from the typically Góreckian three-note motto-theme D - E- F, from which all the harmony is derived. In the opening section it simply builds into a reiterated cluster for the altos and tenors; thereafter it provides a ‘halo’ for the basses’ lamenting, chant-like phrase ‘Venite adoremus, et procidamus...’ The cluster treatment is then used again, but this time, magnificently, for full choir. There is then a radical change of tonality and of dynamic, the text from Psalm 126 being set to the same motto, but this time against B flat, before ‘Euntes ibant...’ returns, firstly to the original mottotheme cluster, coloured briefly by a dramatic E flat instead of E natural. The D major near the end is as luminous as it is unexpected: as ever with Górecki, the music swings between lamentation and exultation.

A companion piece to Euntes Ibant Et Flebant is found in Amen, written in 1975. The work’s title is its only text, and it makes use of procedures very similar to those of the earlier work, but is of a far more consistently joyful character. It starts from the two notes F and A and builds inexorably outwards from them. This is contrasted with a second idea, a reiterated decoration of a blazing A major chord. Characteristically, however, the piece ends in the minor, as indeed does Euntes Ibant Et Flebant.

Totus Tuus (1987) is a younger relation of both these earlier pieces. It was written in honour of the third visit of Pope John Paul II to his native Poland, and sets a Latin text in honour of the Mother of God: ‘Totus tuus’ was the late Pope’s apostolic motto, and was made the basis of the poem by Maria Bogusławska that Górecki sets. The music manifests a clear connection to Euntes Ibant Et Flebant and Amen in the way it builds obsessively from minimal material to the grandest of climaxes before dying away in its own resonance, but there is a new openness here towards more overtly tonal musical material, more clearly related to Roman Catholic liturgical repertoires. Indeed, it achieves something of a miracle in that it never lapses into sentimentality. The associations of the musical vocabulary are suspended by the composer’s phenomenal sense of timing, his ability to extend the smallest gesture into what promises to be eternity yet know exactly when

Totus Tuus: Henryk Górecki Choral Music to stop. This produces a remarkable tension, in which the question of the kind of musical vocabulary employed is much less important than the transparency of the laudatory intention of the work as a whole.

Lobgesang (‘Song of Praise’) was composed in 2000, to a commission from the City of Mainz in honour of Johannes Gutenberg, the 15th-century inventor of modern printing. The famous Gutenberg Bible was the first significant book to be produced on a printing press. Górecki derives the musical material for this setting of brief phrases from the Psalms, in German, from an idiosyncratic solmization of Gutenberg’s name: that is, Górecki takes most of the letters of the name ‘Johannes Gutenberg’ and converts them into their musical equivalents to give the notes C- B - A - E- E flat- G - C- E- B flat- E- D - G. This somewhat curious sequence explains the unpredictability of the harmony in this work.

It never cadences exactly as one expects, and thus seems constantly to be beginning again in search of new means of conveying the idea of ‘praise’. Another surprise is the glockenspiel, which is used only at the very end of the piece, to spell out the musical transcription of Gutenberg’s name over an extremely quiet chord from the choir, held for an extraordinarily long time, to the word ewig (‘eternal’).

Highly characteristic of Górecki is his use of very familiar harmonies in unfamiliar contexts.

One is constantly surprised at the reiteration of a harmonic sequence that on paper looks perfectly ordinary, or even mundane, but which in performance sounds completely new. Allied to this is the composer’s extraordinary sense of timing, specifically with regard to the number of times he feels able to repeat a phrase in order to make the maximum impact: it is never to excess. For this reason alone, the ‘minimalist’ label sometimes applied to him would be entirely erroneous. While perhaps the most famous example of this use of repetition is the Third Symphony, the ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’, in fact it occurs in very many of his pieces, from as long ago as the 1960s, as mentioned above. On this disc, Totus Tuus and Salve, Sidus Polonorum provide shining examples of this technical mastery.

Salve, Sidus Polonorum (2000) is in fact an extract from a larger work on which Górecki worked from 1997-2000, an oratorio on the theme of St Wojciech (also Vojtěch, Vjačeslav and Adalbert), martyred in 997 in his missionary efforts to convert the Baltic Prussians. St Wojciech was a cosmopolitan figure, as the multiple versions of his name suggest. He is also patron saint of Bohemia, and his life was spent in Prague, Magdeburg, Rome, Gniezno and elsewhere. Thus, Salve, Sidus Polonorum was written to commemorate a meeting between Pope John Paul II and the Polish and German presidents at Gniezno, whose cathedral is dedicated to the Saint.

The work is divided into three sections: ’ ety Wojciechu ‘Per Merita Sancti Adalberti’; ‘Swi˛ Patronie Nasz Drogi’ and ‘Salve, Sidus Polonorum’. The Latin-texted movements take their cue from chants in honour of the Saint, the first using a Magnificat antiphon and the second expanding the opening phrase in to a repeated, joyful setting of the single word ‘Alleluia’.

Górecki begins the work with a single note, an E struck on the bells. Out of its resonance grows the simple opening choral phrase, to the word ‘Alleluia’. Indeed, throughout the work, the instrumental ensemble’s function is exclusively to add resonance to the choral sound in one way or another. That repeated E later becomes an E with a dissonant D sharp acciaccatura, ’ ety Wojciechu and in the central section, Swi˛ Patronie Nasz Drogi, the piano is used to provide a low semitonal clash, muddying the diatonic simplicity of the choral invocation. At the words ‘Sancte Adalberte’, this acoustic disturbance

Recorded on 26 August 2010 in the Chapel of Merton College, Oxford and 15 April and 25 August 2011 in the Chapel of Oundle School Producer and Engineer: Paul Baxter 24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Design: John Christ Booklet editor: Henry Howard

is turned into peals of joyous octaves, and the final section, ‘Salve, Sidus Polonorum’ continues this in a glorious sequence of Alleluias rising to triple-forte (the percussion ensemble actually has quintuple-forte) before subsiding to a tiny coda, quiet and ever slower. It is also, typically, ambiguous: the chord is certainly a bright C major, but it is sung in second inversion, technically requiring resolution, and thus leaving a feeling that the riotous praise we have just experienced may not have ended, but be continuing in realms celestial.

Ivan Moody © 2012 Ivan Moody is a composer, conductor and musicologist. Amongst his most important compositions are Passion And Resurrection, the Akáthistos Hymn, Ossetian Requiem, The Dormition Of The Virgin and Stabat Mater.

Photography (general choir): Phoebe Ling Photography (individual): Paul Hampartsoumian Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk With thanks to the Warden and Fellows of the House of Scholars of Merton College, Oxford and the Headmaster and Chaplain of Oundle School

Texts 1 Euntes Ibant Et Flebant

Euntes ibant et flebant.

Venite adoremus, et procidamus: et ploremus ante Dominum, qui fecit nos.

Euntes ibant et flebant, mittentes semina sua.

Venientes autem venient cum exultatione, portantes manipulos suos.

Euntes ibant et flebant.

Psalm 126 (125):6-7 Psalm 95 (94):6

4-6 Salve, Sidus Polonorum

They went on their way out and were weeping.

Come, let us worship and fall before him: and let us cry before the Lord who made us.

They went on their way out and were weeping when they sowed their seed.

But coming back they came with rejoicing, and carrying their sheaves.

They went on their way out and were weeping.

2 Lobgesang

Lobet Lobet den Herrn.

Groß bist Du O mein Herr O mein Gott.

Ewig sollst Du sein Ewig.

Praise, Praise the Lord.

Great art thou O my Lord, O my God. Eternal shalt thou be, Eternal.

words from the Psalms, assembled by the composer

Totus tuus sum, Maria, Mater nostri Redemptoris, Virgo Dei, Virgo pia, Mater mundi Salvatoris.

Maria!

Maria Bogusławska

I. ALLELUIA

Per merita sancti Adalberti Christe nos exaudi Atque eius precibus Nobis succurre miseris.

Through the merits of St Adalbert (Wojciech), Christ hear us And by his prayers Help us wretches.

ALLELUIA

ALLELUIA

’ ety Wojciechu II. Swi˛ Patronie nasz drogi M˛eczenniku Boży módl sie˛ za nami.

Sancte Adalberte Patrone noster Martyr Dei.

II. St Wojciech, Our dear patron, God’s martyr, pray for us.

St Adalbert, Our patron, God’s martyr.

ALLELUJA

ALLELUIA

III. Salve, sidus Polonorum.

III. Hail, star of the Polish people.

ALLELU LELUJA ALLELUJA

ALLELU LELUIA ALLELUIA

from a mediaeval Magnificat antiphon and sequence (Fr Jerzy Pikulik); additional words by the composer

7 Amen

3 Totus Tuus

MARIA, MARIA!

I. ALLELUIA

MARY, MARY!

I am yours wholly, Mary, Mother of our Redeemer, Virgin of God, holy Virgin, Mother of the world’s Saviour.

Mary!

Amen

The National Youth Choirs of Great Britain Founded in 1983 as a single choir of 100 of the nation’s best young singers, NYCGB now provides a wide range of musical experience for over 750 young people aged 9-28. The educational structure comprises four Junior Choirs, ‘Cambiata Voices’ for boys at the voice change, two Training Choirs, the National Youth Choir itself for singers aged 16-22, and the world-renowned chamber choir, Laudibus. The National Youth Choir has an enviable reputation as one of the world’s most flexible vocal ensembles, and has performed with leading musicians all over the planet.

The choir has an equally high profile in the UK, singing in Parliament, at the National Gallery, at the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall, at several BBC Proms, on TV documentaries and even the programme Airport, and at an FA Cup final and rugby internationals. In its commitment to new music, NYCGB has commissioned works by a great number of leading composers. For the choir’s 25th anniversary it commissioned a piece from Eric Whitacre, premiered in collaboration with the King’s Singers. The choir subsequently toured with Whitacre in California, culminating in a concert of his music in Disney Hall, L.A.

The National Youth Choir of Great Britain NYCGB takes great pride in its ongoing recording series with Delphian, which regularly inspires accolades and five-star reviews. This includes discs of the music of Richard Allain (DCD34026) and Giles Swayne (DCD34033), an acclaimed disc of music by Schütz (DCD34043), and of works for multiple choirs (Sanctum est Verum Lumen, DCD34045); Mike Brewer’s Word Tour (DCD34080) and Songs Of The Baltic Sea (DCD34052) were released in 2011.

Laudibus, NYCGB’s associated chamber choir, has recorded Song of Songs (DCD34042; a Classic FM Record of the Week), and music

by Vaughan Williams (DCD34074; a Classic FM Disc of the Month). In 2010 Scotland at Night (DCD34060) won high praise; their first Christmas disc is scheduled for release in 2012.

Soprano 1 Amelia Berridge Sarah Bowe Katherine Carson Emily Chadwick Melissa Davies Robyn Donnelly Eleanor Edmonds Harriet Flower Alice Halstead Isobel Harris Alice Higgins Gessica Howarth Natalie Hyde Hannah Jones Lousie Keenan Folasade-Nelleke Ladipo Rosie Miller Ellie Moore Emily Owen Isabelle Morgan Bethany Partridge Hannah Partridge Elisabeth Paul Aimee Presswood Amy Puttick Rachel Spencer Jennifer Stewart Caroline Swarbrick Jessica Thayer Sarah Thornhill Kate Thorogood

Charlotte Trepess Sarah Walker Kirsty Williamson Soprano 2 Rachel Balcombe Ella Bodeker Guilia Boggiano Eleanor Broomfield Charlotte Brosnan Rachel Crisp Lucy Curtis Katie Dobson Zara Fyfe Frances Gregory Stephanie Guidera Nani Hall Samuel Hickman Louise Laprun Kirsty McLean Charlotte Mason Philippa Peall Eleanor Penfold Alice Pollock Katie Shearman Jessica Smith Jeharna South Cathy Stockall Florence Taylor Bethan Thomas Carrie Thompson Ellen Timothy Helen Vincent

Alto 1 Kate Aitchison Genevieve Arkle Michael Ash Lucy Ashlee Laura Baldwin Michaela Bennison Isabel Biggs Jessica Blease Felicity Buckland Rosina Bullen Marguerite Camu Anna Caveliero Lucia Chan Katie Coventry Rachel Doherty Alexandra Edwards Louisa Ellis Hannah-May Elmasry Molly Garfoot Emma Haddon Hebe Hamilton Alisha Hart Lara Rebekah Harvey Eleanor Hicks Eleanor Hobbs Victoria Hodges Alexandra Jennings Rebekah Jones Charlotte La Thrope Grace Le Tocq Tori Longdon

Alex Masters Ruth McElvanney Kayleigh McEvoy Shendie McMath Vassiliki-Eleni Milonidis Timothy Morgan Lucy Prendergast Hannah Semple Octavia Serrano Jenny Simpson Charlotte Skidmore Ellie Sowden Kate Thorogood Rosalie Warner Bethan Waters Jenny Welch Rebekah Wheeler Alto 2 Alex Abley Liberty Buckland Emma Julia Buckley Olivia Castle Lucy Cox Lara de Belder Naomi Dunston Harriet Eaves Rebecca Grady Sarah Hickling Becki Ingram Rosheen Iyer Betty Jones Amy Lyddon-Towl

The National Youth Choir of Great Britain Alto 2 continued Carla Matthews Sarah Maxted Hannah Millard Rosie O’Sullivan Avalon Summerfield Amelia Tudor Beamish Roberta Turner Karen Watura Abaigh Wheatley Hannah Wickham Katrina Rose Wilson Rachel Wyllie Tenor 1 Richard Bignall Alistair Colam Edward Griffiths Geoffrey Hicking David Jones Max Laverack Zakiy Manji Adam O’Shea Richard Pinkstone Domhnall Talbot Guy Withers Tenor 2 Samuel Barson James Bingham David Casey Daniel Daly Jacob Dorrell

Nicholas Ellington William Stewart Gosnold Alexander Grainger Ted Lougher William Morgan Alexander Oliver Sam O’Rourke Jonathon Peters Matthew Roughley Benedict Rowe Alistair Semmence Matthew Thomson Bass 1 Richard Austin Robi Bhattacharya Thomas Chevis Christopher Dawson Sam Duffield Timothy Ferguson Robert Garland William Gillett Hugo Herman-Wilson Andrew Horton Jeremy Hubbard Samuel Hucklebridge Guy Hughes James Hutchings Luke Mather Alexander McCleery Jake Muffett William Pate James Quilligan

Mike Brewer Peter St Clair Morgan Francis St John Alex Shaw Ben Tomlin Jamie Wright Bass 2 Gary Allen William Ball Joachim Cassel Luke de Belder Tim Edmundson Thomas Friberg David Ireland Phil Jackson Tim Langston Greg Link Charlie Murray Owain Park Sheevam Pattni Greshan Rasiah Dominic Stewart Harry Thatcher William Wadsworth Ralph Warman Jonathan Wood

Because this recording was made over three courses, in Summer 2010 and Easter and Summer 2011, not all singers performed on all tracks.

In his long teaching career, including twenty years as Director of Music at Chetham’s specialist music school, Mike found time to enjoy a parallel life as a choral conductor, and he is busier than ever now, arranging music, taking master classes and workshops, and working with choirs of every kind.

Winning ‘Let The Peoples Sing’ (the BBC’s worldwide choral competition) with the Latymer Madrigal Group in 1973 established Mike’s choral credentials. Then in 1983 he became musical director of the National Youth Choir. Now consisting of seven choirs and seven hundred singers, NYCGB undertakes a programme of high-profile concerts, award winning recordings and world tours.

In 1992 Mike formed Laudibus, the National Youth Chamber Choir, made up of NYCGB members and alumni, which continues to serve as a launch pad into the singing profession.

Laudibus has undertaken successful recordings, festival appearances and special events including a performance for Her Majesty the Queen by invitation in Balmoral.

A passion for world music has led Mike to arrange songs from many countries. His latest series World Tour, for Faber Music, has been recorded by NYCGB with Delphian Records (DCD34080). Mike Brewer’s other books for Faber Music include the best selling Kickstart

Your Choir, Warmups, Improve Your SightSinging (with Paul Harris) and Fine-Tune Your Choir. Hamba Lulu, his set of African songs, is performed worldwide, as is his second set, Banuwa. Hamba can be found on YouTube in nearly 100 different performances.

Mike is consultant for over 20 prize-winning UK choirs, and In 2008 led BBC workshops for Last Choir Standing. He serves on the jury for many international choral festivals, and is a regular adjudicator for BBC ‘Choir Of The Year’, including the 2012 competition. He also directs choirs and teaches choral conductors worldwide, and his annual tours include the USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, Venezuela, Poland and Slovakia. He is an assessor to Mexico’s choral programme.

He wrote the song and prepared conductors for the Olympic baton handover in August 2008. It was performed in 27 city centres across the UK. Mike Brewer is a gold medalist double bass player and was a Churchill Fellow for 2002/3.

He was appointed OBE in 1995.

Songs of the Baltic Sea National Youth Choir of Great Britain / Mike Brewer conductor

Song of Songs Laudibus / Mike Brewer conductor

DCD34052

DCD34042

East meets West on this new recording as two great singing traditions are brought together, to thrilling effect. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the three Baltic states have emerged as powerhouses of choral innovation and imagination. Mike Brewer and the NYCGB bring all their customary fervour and virtuosity to bear on this programme of masterworks from three of Europe’s smallest, yet musically richest, countries.

The Song of Songs stands apart from its Biblical surroundings as one of the supreme love poems of world literature, a celebration of erotic love in the form of a dialogue between a bridegroom and his bride invoking all the senses – the fragrance of wine, blossom, fruits and spices. Ranging widely over five centuries, from the relative asperity of Dunstaple to the lush exoticism of Daniel-Lesur, this cherry-picked assortment of sweetmeats is given exultant life by Mike Brewer and Laudibus.

‘An outstanding disc which emphasises how fortunate the NYCGB is to have Brewer’s drive and energy. Rejoice!’ — Gramophone, February 2012 ‘Essential for choral fans.’ — The Observer, December 2011 Mike Brewer’s World Tour National Youth Choir of Great Britain / Mike Brewer conductor DCD34080

‘Coming from backgrounds of both English choral music and jazz, I have always been obsessed by musical connections. I love to perform music of one culture with singers of another, to help performers to share an awareness of music in different contexts…

The pieces of choral music found here are similarly hybrid, because in most cases they combine elements from more than one source...’ The internationally-renowned National Youth Choir is peerless in bringing to life Brewer’s transcontinental choral imaginings. Headed up by the first commercial recording of Mike’s Hamba Lulu, the programme journeys us from the Icelandic tundra to the sultry jazz clubs of Latin America.

Is your hi-fi ready to go?

‘As always, the National Youth Choir of Great Britain doesn’t let him down.

The singing is technically strong and totally uninhibited, the soloists gifted...

If you need a feel-good factor, this is it.’

— Choir and Organ, July/August 2010, FIVE STARS

‘The music, performances and sound on the disc are warm, sensitive and luminous’ — BBC Music Magazine, September 2007 ‘Laudibus seems to be not one chamber choir but several on this CD’ — International Record Review Sanctum Est Verum Lumen: Multi-part music for choir National Youth Choir of Great Britain / Mike Brewer conductor DCD34045

Tallis’s monumental Spem In Alium is one of the greatest glories of Western polyphony, and its pre-echoes and aftershocks reverberate through all the other pieces on this disc. The National Youth Choir of Great Britain’s massed voices shed dazzling light on their multifaceted programme of polychoral jewels from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, interspersed with virtuoso tributes from three leading contemporary composers including Gabriel Jackson’s own towering 40-part motet Sanctum Est Verum Lumen.

‘Under Mike Brewer’s expert direction, the young voices of the National Youth Choir make properly massive impact’ — The Sunday Times, October 2008 ‘There’s nothing austere or tranquil about the singing here: God is being praised, not feared, by these glorious performers’ — Classic FM Magazine, December 2008

DCD34054