Mom and Dad Meet Gorecki

i am having lunch with phi1ip gl@ss next week!

Lunch in Ten Parts, by P. Glass

Course 1: Salad greens.
Course 2: Salad greens with shredded carrots.
Course 3: Salad greens with shredded carrots and shredded beets.
Course 4: Shredded carrots and shredded beets with shredded cabbage.
Course 5: Shredded carrots and shredded cabbage with mayonnaise.
Course 6: Mayonnaise and salad greens on a kaiser.
Course 7: Mayonnaise and salad greens and turkey on a kaiser.
Course 8: Coffee.
Course 9: Coffee with cream.
Course 10: Coffee with cream and sugar.

KNOCK KNOCK
Who's there?
KNOCK KNOCK
Who's there?
KNOCK KNOCK
Who's there?
KNOCK KNOCK
Who's there?
Philip Glass.

So this is ILM's single Gorecki thread, it seems? Tell me what to expect from Gorecki, pls.

i keep meaning to listen to Gorecki that isn't Symphony Number 3 but Symphony Number 3 is pretty amazing so just listening to that forever is not so terrible

That is the one I am going to see, so I am glad to hear that it is amazing. But what kind of amazing?

if you listen to Symphony Number 3 expect loooong sloooooow melodic string lines that are total "Ambient Moodz" bait plus beautiful slooooow singing over the top as time freezes to a halt and you lie there all brainsmacked

and it shd creep its way up v slow from near silence to tidal wave of sad but contemplative

OK, yes, now I am excited. (I mean, I was excited by the Reich piece already) but this sounds absolutely up my alley. (I hope I am less sad by May, but then again, it will probably still be nice, even if I am not.)

If Symphony No.3 is the one I think, it's beautiful, heartbreaking. Sounds like it's being played in reverse. Definitely an influence on Aphex and maybe Trent Reznor

Cosign. There are a few recorded versions but the original and best is the Nonesuch one with Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta.

Funnily enough I also have a story about meeting Górecki. I was on holiday in Chicago in 1994 and he did an instore one afternoon where I got a CD signed. The same evening there was a performance of Miserere in a church, which is the performance recorded on the Nonesuch CD of that piece.

Symphony #3 = homophonic, tonal, massively emo. I like it but I find the second movement kind of overbearing in the way it stares at you with the big sad eyes.

What else is in the programme?

It's probably the closest any late 20th-century 'classical' music has come to a genuine mass following, and I'm including Reich/Glass/Pärt in that. It's sold something like a million recordings and you'll know why when you listen to it, it's very accessible and emotional.

There's this unsearchable thread as well:

henryk górecki s/d

as i said i think the sadness is kinda tempered or placed at a distance, it's the sadness of angels not human beings really, or maybe that is just an effect of its relentless presence at the top of the "this is modern music that is readily accessible and will make you feel things" pile

it makes me think of the slow fadeout of Mahler's 9th but working in the other direction and then receding again

it's the sadness of angels not human beings really
OTM.

DC, it's part of this mini-festival celebrating Nonesuch records at the Barbican in May, also featuring Reich's Electric Counterpoint - which is the main reason I'm going - oh but also some soundtrack compositions by some bloke in Radiohead, not that anyone else would be interested in that.

The more the descriptions, I have probably heard it, just didn't know what it was/was called.

about ten years ago I remember hearing it a lot in TV/movies straining to create emotion--think that was a fad that happily passed, but you will probably recognize it. Reich + Gorecki sounds awesome, I am jealous

What makes it work for me is that the stanzas (?) never seem to resolve themselves, they just seem to loop up but never around again. Sorry that's a shit description but the feeling of it playing in reverse, like black and white footage of a tragic but beautiful incident playing backwards is what I get from it.

Also it might be worth pointing out to BB that gybe's track 'Moya' had the working title of Gorecki, presumably because it borrows from the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs quite liberally.

about ten years ago I remember hearing it a lot in TV/movies straining to create emotion

The movie that probably used it first, Peter Weir's criminally-underrated Fearless, just came out on DVD for the first time. Highly recommended, one of the best Jeff Bridges performances and an unexpectedly heartbreaking one by Rosie Perez.

oh i haven't seen Fearless since the cinema release, definitely want to rescreen

his 2nd symphony is jarringly thorny, like huge slabs of dense dissonant orchestral blasts just pounding away

That concert actually sounds pretty cool, I got Barbican membership for Christmas and have yet to put it to any actual use.

What makes it work for me is that the stanzas (?) never seem to resolve themselves, they just seem to loop up but never around again

If I'm reading you correctly then stanzas = cadences in this context. Avoiding harmonic resolution is kind of a 20th century thing and this is more conventional than most in that regard, but I kind of see where you're coming from.

The whole festival looks pretty cool, and if I had a Barbican membership, I'd go to the whole thing probably.

I am having trouble thinking which specific GYBE! track is which but it will probably be staggeringly obvious once I dig out the CD.