Barnes & Noble
If, like millions of listeners, you fell in love with Henryk Góreki's Third Symphony -- the gorgeous "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" -- when it became a surprise top-seller back in 1992, but then felt jolted by the composer's two vigorously rhythmic string quartets, this Third Quartet is for you. Like the Symphony, this score, subtitled "...songs are sung," is both sorrowful and songlike, charting a course of soul-searching melancholy through music that rarely rises above mezzo piano. It begins austerely: an Adagio built on a slow-treading metrical accompaniment borrowed from Beethoven's Seventh that supports a sighing violin melody. Growing to an anguished high point, the movement dissolves into an uneasy stillness, only to be followed by an even more hushed Largo, flecked with glints of major-key melody. Although the relatively brief, central Allegro temporarily keeps the gloom at bay, the thematically related Deciso and Finale show that this composer knows that sometimes the most powerful statements are not shouted but whispered. The Kronos Quartet create a sustained, rapt mood across the bleakly beautiful emotional landscape of this remarkable music. EJ Johnson
All Music Guide
The essay in the program booklet for this release of Górecki's "String Quartet No. 3" (...songs were sung), makes much of a supposed caesura in Górecki's creative output following the phenomenal success of Nonesuch's 1992 release of this "Third Symphony," with soprano Dawn Upshaw, which elevated him practically to the level of a pop star. The essay implies that his meteoric rise to being one of the most famous and popular contemporary composers may have produced a creative crisis that caused him to wait until 2005 to finally deliver the score of his "Third Quartet," which he had written in the winter of 1994-1995. In fact, Górecki's sudden notoriety seems to have had little effect on his creativity; between 1993 and 2004, he wrote 16 opus numbers.
The "String Quartet No. 3" inhabits much the same musical and emotional universe as the composer's "Third Symphony" and the earlier string quartets -- an overwhelming sense of sadness followed by a cathartic peacefulness, created by the use of figural repetition; predominantly slow tempos, which are very occasionally punctuated by faster, often ironic, outbursts; the use of melancholy, folk-like melodies; and mildly dissonant minor key chorale-like textures that tend toward harmonic stasis. The five-movement quartet is constructed in a loose arch form, with material from the first movements repeated in the last movements and an ending that mirrors the beginning. The composer throws in enough surprises, such as a surprisingly stolid and romantic theme that appears in the third and fourth movements, to relieve the quartet's darkness. The response to the composer's "Third Symphony" will be a good indicator of the listener's appreciation of this quartet because it shares so many qualities with that work. The Kronos Quartet, which commissioned the piece, gives it a technically superlative and emotionally wrenching performance. Nonesuch's sound is intimate and warm, with excellent balance. Stephen Eddins
Gramophone
A work of transcendent, soul-searching beauty.... Utterly remarkable -- a master at work, performed by masters. Ivan Moody
BBC Music Magazine
Górecki's lyricism and faith pervade the piece, but their expression in beautifully-voiced, re-iterated melodies is undercut by acrid harmonies suggesting doubt, grief and mental strife. Barry Witherden
San Francisco Chronicle
The Kronos plays with unmatched intensity, and the performance often achieves a kind of gritty nobility. Joshua Kosman
BBC Online
Whilst the slow, mournful music fully articulates the weight of death and grief, instead of being catapulted into corresponding misery, it has the surprising effect of throwing the listener into a state of contemplation, reverie and even hope. Charlotte Gardner
Newark Star-Ledger
A major statement, and deeply moving besides.... This sadly profound music should touch anyone with two ears and a heart.
Bradley Bambarger
Audiophile Audition
It’s nice to have Górecki back in a substantial way, and if you like Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, you will have to have the nearest thing to a sequel that he has yet composed. Steven Ritter
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