The Orchestra and Chorus of the Silesian Philharmonic in Katowice will pay tribute to the founder of Wratislavia Cantans, Andrzej Markowski. The artist, born in 1924, was a preeminent Polish conductor of the 20th century and a tireless promoter of Polish music around the world. One of the composers whose works he premiered was Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, hailing from Silesia. His works feature in the programme of the concert dedicated to Markowski, and a new work by Mikołaj Piotr Górecki – Henryk’s son – entitled 1944 will be premiered.

Ad Matrem, composed in 1971, was a breakthrough in the work of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki. The composer turned to sacred themes, which have since become a permanent feature of his works. In the 1970s, he maintained the creative strategy, begun in the previous decade, of simplifying his musical style. Paradoxically, the compositions written at that time gained a monumental character, and the author eagerly used oratorio and cantata forms. The text in Ad Matrem is taken from the Latin sequence Stabat Mater. The musical language is characterised, on the one hand, by extremely sharp dynamic contrasts, and on the other hand, by lyricism, which was at one time compared to the style of Stanisław Moniuszko. The work was premiered in 1972 by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Andrzej Markowski. Górecki’s religious work also includes Totus Tuus – one of his most popular works, written in 1987 for a cappella choir on the occasion of the third visit of Pope John Paul II to Poland. The text layer combines the words of the titular papal motto with a work by the poet Maria Bogusławska. While listening, a sense of simplicity and clarity prevails.

Like Ad Matrem, the two-movement Symphony No. 2 “Copernicus” was performed for the first time under the baton of Andrzej Markowski. It was commissioned by the Kościuszko Foundation on the occasion of Nicolaus Copernicus’ 500th birth anniversary. The appeal of the work is brought to a maximum – the dynamics and articulation are very expressive. “The first movement can be interpreted as a drama of creation: the struggle and constant clash of elements, also as a constant play between ‘darkness’ and ‘light’,” wrote Bohdan Pociej. The second movement brings contemplative silence, and here, in the final chorale, Górecki includes a quote from De revolutionibus orbium coelestium: “And what is more beautiful than the sky, which embraces everything that is beautiful?”

The concert will end with the world premiere of Mikołaj Piotr Górecki’s piece 1944, dedicated to Andrzej Markowski on the centenary of his birth. The year written in the title is an obvious reference to the Warsaw Uprising, in which Markowski took part as a soldier of the Home Army. Before the outbreak of the uprising, he played at the U Aktorek [Actresses’] cafe in Warsaw, and also wrote songs that lifted the spirits of Poles in the occupied homeland. A fragment of one of these pieces is quoted in the finale of the 1944.