Henryk Górecki (1933-2010)
String Quintet no. 1, “Already it is Dusk” (1988)
Though he only achieved a level of celebrity almost unheard of for a classical composer until the early 1990s (thanks to the phenomenal success of Nonesuch’s recording of his “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”), Henryk Górecki had been an important and prolific member of the Polish avant-garde since the 1950s. During his long career, he primarily wrote choral and orchestral music, though there was also a significant amount of chamber music. Included among the latter are three string quartets, all of which were commissioned by the San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet. The first of these, heard on tonight’s concert, is based on a Polish Renaissance motet called “A Prayer for Children Going to Sleep.” The motet’s opening line, “Already it is dusk,” became the subtitle for the whole piece.
The Quartet falls into three large sections. The first alternates spare, open fifths with introverted, canonic writing derived from the tenor melody of “A Prayer for Children.” The apparent disconnect and contrast between the two types of music – the one withdrawn, the other aggressive – forms the basic musical and dramatic tension of “Already it is Dusk.”
This conflict is heavily apparent in the Quartet’s second section, which is fast and, often, downright violent. Echoes of Bartók’s string quartets are never far removed, nor that of Górecki’s other great Slavic quartet-writing counterpart, Shostakovich.
The open fifths from the Quartet’s beginning mark the start of its third section, which is essentially a recapitulation of the first part, now abbreviated. Instead of building to a violent climax, though, the music fades away softly with a series of rising triads – as enigmatic a cadence as many of the other gestures in the piece were forceful.
© Jonathan Blumhofer
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