|
When Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki first came to America in 1992, he wasn't yet
famous. His Third Symphony, newly released on Nonesuch Records, hadn't yet shot to No. 6
on the British pop charts or settled in for its long run on top of the classical charts
here.
So Gorecki didn't ask to meet
Madonna or the New York Philharmonic. In fact, says Carol Yaple, then vice president for
artist development at Nonesuch and now an independent producer of special musical events,
he made just two requests. One was for a cardiologist; the other was to see some
mountains.
Yaple made sure a doctor was on
hand. Gorecki's health is poor; he has had heart attacks and kidney trouble, even a brain
tumor. But where could she find mountains close to New York City?
She compromised and took Gorecki to
a crowded park above the Hudson River called Bear Mountain, though it's really just a
chain of woodsy hills. "There he was," she remembers, smiling, "with that
bad leg" (he limps from a childhood injury), walking everywhere, far from his native
Poland, but "ecstatic" and completely at home.
Who is this man who loves mountains more than fame? What do we know about the first
living classical composer to sell a million records who, starting tonight, is going to be
honored with four days of concerts, appearances and discussions at USC? If all goes as
scheduled, he'll even conduct his Third Symphony for the first time in America.
But here the plans conflict with
Gorecki's reputation, because he's often said to be a recluse. And certainly the
63-year-old composer won't allow himself to be a public figure. He was wary, Yaple says,
of press attention; on this trip, he won't allow press conferences or face-to-face
interviews.
He doesn't live in Poland's
intellectual and artistic center, Warsaw, but instead (with his wife and two children) in
the industrial city of Katowice, near the Tatra Mountains, a rugged region he prefers to
any other place on Earth. He travels to the English-speaking world for Polish events more
often than for performances. And, according to Maria Anna Harley, professor of music and
director of the Polish Music Reference Center at USC (and creator of this week's
festival), he'll turn around and leave if the arrangements don't suit him.
Yet, as Yaple says, he's also
"capable of great force and warmth." As evidence, she points to a documentary
that was shown on Dutch TV. Speaking happily in German, his second language, Gorecki
welcomes a Dutch conductor to his Katowice apartment. The city is notoriously polluted,
and the outside of Gorecki's building is blackened with a haze of soot. But inside, all is
welcoming, with folk art and religious paintings hanging everywhere.
There, and later in a trip to the
Netherlands, the centerpiece of the film, Gorecki talks about his work with both authority
and a boyish sense of wonder. After the premiere of a new composition, he jumps on stage
to cheer the Dutch musicians. He wears an absurdly wrinkled bright blue suit and shines
with happiness.
It's also true, however, that he has
been isolated. That's partly because of his health. But it's also because -- as a fervent
Catholic and supporter of Pope John Paul II -- he fought with Poland's former ruling
communists. "Little yapping dogs," he calls them now, but in 1979, they forced
him to resign from an important teaching job. "They treated me as if I was
dead," he later said.
And he was also set apart by his music. While other Polish composers oriented
themselves toward Western Europe, Gorecki "remains in close contact with his Polish
roots," Maria Harley says. Nourished by the folk music of the Tatra Mountains, he
evolved what Yaple calls his "elemental" style, which with its apparent
simplicity defied the modernist musicians' rule that music should be complicated.
But that simplicity can be
deceptive, because Gorecki's music stretches toward extremes. Much of the Third Symphony
is low-pitched, painted in a thousand shades of darkness. It's static, sorrowful, and all
of it is slow. In the Dutch video, Gorecki plays a new work on the piano, treating the
slow parts, where time nearly stops, with rapt attention. Then, when the music gets
faster, he attacks it with almost shocking ferocity. "Everything with him has to be
maximum," Harley says, "played with maximum passion."
His concentration on his vision
grows abrasive, even "ruthless," as one of his students once reported
(admiringly). Apart from "thank you," Carol Yaple heard him say just two words
of English in New York five years ago. "Be honest," he told a student chorus
that had rehearsed his work.
But Gorecki's independence also can
be charming. He won't speculate, for instance, on why his symphony became so popular.
"I can tell you why I wear red or green pants," he once said, "but not what
happened, or why it happened."
What people find arresting in the
work, however, might be Gorecki's honesty, along with a sense of religious awe. Robert
Hurwitz, the president of Nonesuch Records, says Gorecki has "a depth that you don't
find in Western music." Harley finds him "white-hot, reaching into
archetypes." Gorecki himself won't speak about the deepest meaning of his work,
though he did once quote the pope: "[Artists] know that what they do is only a
distant echo of God's word."
One thing is clear. The Third Symphony, for all its depth, gives only an introduction
to Gorecki's music. Harley also recommends the piece Gorecki played for the Dutch
conductor, his "Kleines Requiem fur eine Polka" (Little Requiem for a Polka), a
title that makes Gorecki laugh with delight).
And both she and Hurwitz cite
Gorecki's Second Symphony as a so far unacknowledged masterpiece. This work, available on
CD only as an import, on the Stradivarius label, sounds at the end much like the Third
Symphony does, with a glow of subtle, calming harmony. But at the start it's far from the
Third Symphony's gentle hush -- it's fierce and wild, hammering and screaming what might
be a plea, a demand or a lament.
The sound is torn by dissonance and
can seem primitive. Yet it's wrought with loving craftsmanship, surrounded by a glow of
woodwinds. Gorecki, in the end, can't be classified, and his music will almost always
surprise you.
[This article marked the start of "Gorecki Autumn" --
performances, lectures, a symposium, and a master class, all sponsored by the Polish Music
Reference Center at USC.].
Los Angeles Times, October 1, 1997
|