“SYMPHONY OF SORROWFUL SONGS” BY H. M. GORECKI: GENRE-STYLE AND SPIRITUAL SPECIFICITY

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to identify the genre-stylistic and intonation specifics of H. M. Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 in the spiritual traditions of Polish music and their reproduction in the conditions of the cultural and historical realities of the end of the 20th century. The methodological basis of the work is the cultural-historical approach in musicology inherited from B. Asafyev and his followers. At the same time, a historical-cultural and interdisciplinary approach was also very important for this article, which allows us to reveal the specifics of the genre-stylistic synthesis of H. M. Gorecki’s “Symphony of sorrowful songs” in the context of not only the evolution of the composer’s style, but also the existence of national traditions of Polish music in the context spiritual and aesthetic guidelines of postmodern culture. The scientific novelty of the work is determined by its analytical perspective, which takes into account both the peculiarities of the manifestation of the aesthetic and stylistic guidelines of H. M. Gurecki’s work, and the specifics of the genre-stylistic synthesis that takes place in the poetics of his III Symphony. Conclusions. The creative personality of H. M. Gurecki absorbed the indicative qualities of the Polish musical culture of the middle and second half of the 20th century in its consistent movement from the creative innovations of the avant-garde to more traditional means of musical expressiveness, corresponding to the aesthetics of “new simplicity”, “sacred minimalism”, post-romanticism, etc., which, at the same time, interacted with the revival of the traditions of the national spiritual culture and its religious teachings. What has been said is related to the poetics of H. M. Guretskyi’s III symphony (“Simfonia piesni zalosnych” – “Symphony of sorrowful songs” op. 36) (1976). Written for orchestra and solo soprano, this piece focuses on the image of a grieving mother mourning her dead son and is symbolically related to the Mother of God and, at the same time, to the victims of the Second World War. Such a figurative orientation reveals not only the religiosity of the author, but also the veneration of the Virgin Mary as the “Queen of Poland”, as well as the quotation in the symphony of ancient Polish spiritual Mariological songs (lamentations), indicative of Polish spiritual culture. The genre specificity of H. M. Gurecki’s Symphony III was formed at the intersection of the typologies of the symphony, the vocal cycle, and the Stabat Mater, and determined its intonation language, oriented to the musical and expressive principles of the postmodern phenomena of “sacred minimalism” and “new simplicity.”