Sorrowful Songs

April 17, 2016 12:57 PM

Colin Stetson has released "Sorrow - a reimagining of Górecki's 3rd Symphony". Pitchfork writes that the avant-garde saxophonist's reimagining of the famous symphony by the Polish composer comes close to something by Explosions in the Sky or Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Stetson himself is hoping that "the sound world and the genre implications are really irrelevant, that they’re second to the musical content and to the overall theme and feeling of the piece." You can listen and decide for yourself here (YT).
posted by sapagan (8 comments total)

Previously, a comment. Thanks to hippybear for encouraging to make a post.
posted by sapagan at 12:58 PM on April 17, 2016

Thanks for this, sapagan. Colin Stetson really is stunningly amazing, and this album is one of the finest things he's done yet.
posted by koeselitz at 1:06 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

The hairs on my arms started standing up about 2 minutes in. Not sure I can absorb this right now. I had recently posted a link to another recording of the 1st moment on Facebook.

Thanks for this post. I know Gorecki isn't everyone's cup of sorrow/tea, but to me his work is powerful and Stetson's variant is fantastic.
posted by grimjeer at 1:10 PM on April 17, 2016

Thanks for posting this. Gorecki's 3rd is one of my favorites and this is a very powerful take on it. Hadn't heard of Colin Stetson before but he is definitely on my radar now.
posted by aldurtregi at 2:30 PM on April 17, 2016

YASSSSS. Thank you. I wasn't aware of this, and Stetson is my favorite living sax player (and I say this as a sax player - he really is the sax player's sax player). Just incredible technical chops matched with immense creativity.

Cool, this made my afternoon.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:57 PM on April 17, 2016

Magnificent. Met a desperate crying need I didn't know or want to know I even had.

I can't imagine I won't listen to this again and again.
posted by jamjam at 3:43 PM on April 17, 2016

Glad you all like it! I must say that I fell in love with this performance already on the first listen. Like you've already said here, made my hair stand up. Listened to it in my car once and was beginning to forget that there's an outside world to pay attention to (beware of beautiful music while driving!). I mean, really powerful.

Here's a piece from The Guardian that may also be worth a read: Electric guitar, contrabass clarinet and drums: Gorecki's 2016-style makeover.
posted by sapagan at 9:26 PM on April 17, 2016

Holy cow, I like this so much. Thank you.
posted by box at 10:20 AM on April 18, 2016