Górecki: Complete Works for String Quartet in Bloomington, MN

The three string quartets of
Henryk Górecki
were all composed for the
Kronos Quartet
, which has largely ruled the roost as far as performances and recordings go. However, there is certainly room for other readings that include the Polish sonorities in the music, as in this reading by the
Silesian Quartet
. The recordings made classical best-seller lists in 2025 but were recorded in 2008 (the quartets) and 2014 (the arranged
Five Kurpian Songs
at the end). No explanation is given for the in part nearly 20-year delay in releasing the music, but ultimately, that is no matter. To those who come to
Górecki
having heard only the
Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)
, the rather lamenting musical language will seem familiar enough, but there is more to these quartets than simply one general mood. From the open fifth that begins the
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 62 ("Already It Is Dusk")
, but then develops into complex harmonic interactions,
devises structures that seem to be following a program that, for the most part, only he knows. There are quotations or things that seem to be quotations that may be from
Beethoven
or
Szymanowski
but are hard to pin down. The works are quite absorbing, and it becomes clear that the classification of
's music into an "avant-garde" earlier phase and an "accessible" later one works less well for him than it does for other composers of the 1990s and early 2000s. The album concludes with a string quartet arrangement of the
Five Kurpian Songs, Op. 75
, which were originally choral pieces; the string quartet version was suggested by
. These delve into a raw strand, with a characteristic use of pedal points, that comes from Polish folk music. This album makes a good place to start further explorations of
for those who have been drawn by the relatively static language of the
Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
. ~ James Manheim