BBC Music Magazine
April 2025
Chamber Choice

Silesian Quartet (string quartet)

String Quartet No. 1, Op. 62 'Already it is dusk'
String Quartet No. 2, Op. 64 'Quasi una fantasia'
String Quartet No. 3, Op. 67 "... Songs Are Sung"
5 Kurpian Songs, Op. 75 (Version for String Quartet)

The Gramophone Award-winning Silesian Quartet present a double album of the complete works for string quartet by compatriot Henryk Górecki. All three of his numbered string quartets were written late in life – the first in 1988 – and all three were commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. The First Quartet is a single-movement work, based on a sixteenth-century song by Wacław of Szamotuły. The Second, double the length of the First, is subtitled ‘quasi una fantasia’ and follows a classical four-movement form, subtly referencing Beethoven. Górecki completed the Third Quartet (double the length of the Second!) after the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs had catapulted his music to much wider acclaim. It extends to five movements and is considered by many to be one of his greatest compositions. In the 1980s and 1990s, Górecki composed several collections of choral songs. Five Kurpian Songs is based on folksongs from Kurpie, a region north-west of Warsaw. The composer himself suggested that these works would be effective when performed by a string quartet, and here the Silesian Quartet gives us the world première recording of that version.

"‘Already it is Dusk’ owes something to Bartókian tradition in its processing of folk elements from Górecki’s beloved Tatra mountains, while the prayer of its title, taken from a Polish renaissance motet, provides the other main strand. They are perfectly blended by the Silesian Quartet, Górecki interpreters of long standing who play with a mixture of stillness and attack." - BBC Music Magazine, April 2025