Górecki's little requiem for a polka
(January 1994)
Henryk Mikolaj Górecki 's Kleines Requiem für eine Polka was commissioned by the Holland Festival and premiered in Amsterdam on 12 June by the Schoenberg Ensemble under Reinbert de Leeuw. Setting the work in four continuous movements, the composer brings together a number of musical worlds explored in his recent output.Links are implied with the Michael Vyner tribute Good Night in the Requiem of the title, and indeed a valedictory quality is conjured up in the outer movements where bells both real on percussion and imagined on piano toll wistfully, complemented by melancholy strings and references to liturgical chant. In extreme and shocking contrast are a number of violent outbursts for the ensemble, particularly the third movement (perhaps the Polka of the title) with its vamping piano and squealing woodwind. This soundworld can be heard as a development from the 'circus' music at the centre of Concerto-Cantata, and is a natural if wild successor both to the folk festivities of Already it is Dusk and to the aggressive confrontation of Musiquette 4.
The Schoenberg Ensemble toured Kleines Requiem für eine Polka to the Warsaw Autumn Festival and around the Netherlands in September. The work also entered the repertoire of the London Sinfonietta on 18 October at the Barbican conducted by David Atherton. The US premiere took place on 7 November with the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Dennis Russell Davies, who conducted the German premiere in Bonn on 17 November.
> Further information on Work: Kleines Requiem fur eine Polka
Photo: © Malcolm Crowthers
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