Gorecki Symphony No. 3 "Sorrowful Songs" - Lento e Largo

Soprano: Isabel Bayrakdaraian, Sinfonietta Cracovia, conducted by John Axelrod.
Taken from "HOLOCAUST - A Music Memorial Film from Auschwitz". For the first time since its liberation, permission was granted for music to be
heard in Auschwitz and a number of leading musicians were brought there to perform music for the film.

• Category

  Music

[James Girling]

Pity people argue on this blog. Alas.......

[james christie]

Górecki said of the work, "Many of my family died in concentration camps. I had a grandfather who was in Dachau, an aunt in Auschwitz. You know how it is between Poles and Germans. But Bach was a German too—and Schubert, and Strauss. Everyone has his place on this little earth. That's all behind me. So the Third Symphony is not about war; it's not a Dies Irae; it's a normal Symphony of Sorrowful Songs."

[3909clancy]

I never heard of any Jewish out cry to Rawanda or Cambodia.You can't say well my genocide was more tragic then yours.Reguardless if people believe it happened or not

[Darius Martin]

On the other hand I've never heard of people denying the Cambodian or Rwandan genocide, if you know what I mean.

[3909clancy]

Because their experience in genocide is no greater in horror then the people of Cambodia and Rawanda

[panmargaryna]

I partly agree with what you are saying. Even though you are terribly overreacting. And I do not think that Jews should wallow about the suffering of others more then about their own. I don't however understand why educating oneself on the history of events would mean that you 'immerse yourself in historicity' too much. I think that, for the general public, Holocaust is very little known and understood as a historical event, because most knowledge about it in circulation is pop cultural.

[mbanzdj]

"Unfortunately the Jewish experience is the most recorded"

Why unfortunately?

[mbanzdj]

Yes. Those damn Western European Jews don't immerse themselves in Holocaust historicity enough. They just wallow in the pain of their own people rather than other victims of genocide in the early 20th c. It's so selfish. It's so abnormal.

There is a theme running through many of these posts. It's called "whataboutery" and it's about all the other genocides we should talk about instead of the Holocaust, with which this particular presentation of Gorecki's piece is associated....

[mbanzdj]

Yes. Mother and child "seperated" (sic) during war. So much more relateable.

Why the frantic effort to de-couple this piece from the Jews?

It's a bit obvious.

[mbanzdj]

"as no doubt Jewish people have suffered........one would hope that one's eyes would be more open to the world in which we live."

Yes....a terrible shame those Jews were too close-minded to experience the Holocaust as the enlightening experience it could have been for them.

Genocide repackaged, eh?

Jerk.

[johnniejukebox]

Gavin Friday got me here.