9. Henryk GóreckiSymphony No. 3
I find that I resonate only with certain classical musics. I would say mostly choral stuff, which we’re going to come on to later. If we’re looking at what’s had a really formative influence on me, musically, it’s very simple. It’s always been more about texture, repetition and hypnosis and less about variation or change. Symphony No.3 has these long, long drawn-out notes overlapping each other and ascending and descending. To me it’s very much a drone piece. And then, with the addition of Dawn Upshaw’s voice, it creates an incredibly moving experience. In honesty I can’t listen to this piece very often because I just find it so overwhelming, and that’s just the music on its own, without even thinking about the context that it has – the added gravitas that is brought to it, in reflecting on the Holocaust.
