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Classiscsonline Home » Composers » G » Gorecki, Henryk

Henryk Gorecki (b1933)

The Polish composer Henryk Mikolaj Górecki was born on 6 December 1933 in Czernica, Silesia. He studied music at the High School of Music in Katowice (now the Academy of Music). In 1960 he graduated with distinction from the class of the composer Boleslaw Szabelski (author of 5 symphonies), who had been taught by Karol Szymanowski. Górecki had his debut concert as a composer in 1958 in Katowice, which led to performances of his works in the next editions of the "Warsaw Autumn" International Festival of Contemporary Music (including Symphony No. 1 "1959" in 1959 and Scontri in 1960). Shortly afterwards he gained his first significant international success as a composer, winning 1st prize at the 1961 Biennial Festival of Youth in Paris with his Symphony No. 1.

If the style of Górecki's compositions during his first years of studying could be described as "vital-explosive" with a significant element of post-Bartók moto perpetuo, then by the start of the following decade it had been supplemented by features of post-Webern expressionism - his technical style contains selective usage of serial technique ("free serial technique").