It is a commonplace that the exilic prophets who moved captive Judah to imagine a future beyond the certain full stop that was exile in Babylonia saved the life and future of a nation. In the mix, they produced some of humankind’s most stirring poetry.
Redemptive art does not justify tragedy and does not ameliorate its dark realia. Yet it is a measure of the created world and of the human spirit that unspeakable pain somehow creates some of history’s finest words and most gripping sounds.
Enter the twentieth-century Polish composers Henryk Gorecki and his Symphony No. 3 (‘Sorrowful Songs’), performed here in a stunning 1991 recording by the London Sinfonietta under the direction of David Zinman. (more…)
Canter Bridge 