Henryk Górecki - Choral Music: Totus Tuus (2012)

Another take on choral Górecki (see Miserere in links list below), from a charity shop dig a few weeks ago.  This collection is bookended by two works that it has in common with that Nonesuch album, Euntes Ibant Et Flebant and Amen, which offers a nice contrast to the earlier recordings and also leaves a good 45-ish minutes of stuff I wasn't familiar with.

The first of the latter, then, is Lobgesang (2000) written in commemoration of the Gutenberg Bible.  It takes the same technique as Miserere, etc of insistent repitition of a minimal text with gradual musical development, and adds judicious use of a glockenspiel at the end.  Next up is the album's title track, another beautifully austere piece for acapella choir.  Using a more pointedly Roman Catholic liturgy, it was written for a papal visit to Poland in 1987.

That leaves the longest and most instrumentally-augmented work, Salve Sidus Polonorium.  Written in 2000 for a papal-political summit, the text is about the 10th century missionary St. Wojciech (aka Adalbert of Prague).  The first section adds a tolling bell at key moments, before organ, piano and percussion fill out the grandest moments of the central section.  Then the joyous finale is adorned with more bells and piano.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Early works
Symphony No. 3
Beatus Vir
O Domina Nostra
Miserere
Kleines Requiem / Lerchenmusik