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The ballet Light of Passage is set to Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Created in 1976 for a large orchestra and solo soprano, the symphony had its big break in 1989 with a performance by the London Sinfonietta, conductor David Zinman and soprano Dawn Upshaw.
This DVD recording is widely acknowledged as Tony Palmer's masterpiece, this biopic of composer Henryk Górecki features Dawn Upshaw, David Zinman and The London Sinfonietta. It won the gold medal at the New York Film & TV Festival. The Symphony actually dates from 1976 when Górecki was (as he tells us in the film) a 'non-person' in the political sense, when his music was banned in his native Katowice in Poland. Melvyn Bragg showed the film on The South Bank Show, and even managed to persuade the hierarchy of ITV that it would be an abomination to disrupt the film with any commercial breaks. The 53 minute film was shown uninterrupted, an acceptance perhaps of the urgency of its content.
Picture: 16:9
Format: NTSC 0
Subtitles: IT
Running Time:53 mins
