overyourhead

Morrissey's Meltdown 2004...
Paul and I went to see the final show in Morrissey's Meltdown 2004 at the Royal Festival Hall last night: London Sinfonietta play Gorecki and Part. I hadn't heard Part's Tabula Rasa before but it was quite an hypnotic piece of work - especially the second, silentium, movement. Quite mesmerising. The main reason we went, though, was to hear Henryk Gorecki's famous Symphony No.3, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs - a wonderful trio of pieces that manage to be reflective and yet powerfully realised; dynamically subdued (if that makes sense). It's a piece of music that really deserves all the praise and worldwide commercial success it has enjoyed. The emotional focus of the work is centred on texts and lyrical melodies sung my a solo soprano (in the obligatory big puffy dress, I might add), lamenting man's inhumanity to man. It's basically about what the Germans did to the Polish over the centuries. For example, the middle text is from a prayer that was scratched on the wall on a cell in the basement of the Gestapo's Headquarters in Zakopane. All very moving stuff. It was the music that captivated though. It reminded us both of early Eno and Philip Glass. As the night drew to a close Paul and I were floating on air. Quite wonderful.