Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

A towering monument to our world and to the appalling mess we have made of it, is how director Tony Palmer describes Henryk Gorecki's phenomenally successful Symphony No. 3. Palmer overlays a performance by the London Sinfonietta and soprano Dawn Upshaw, conducted by David Zinman, with harrowing footage of man's crimes against his fellow man - from Auschwitz to Somalia, Iraq and Sarajevo. Henryk Gorecki wrote this symphony in 1976 when his music was banned in his native Katowice, roughly twenty minutes from Auschwitz. The words Mama, don't cry, written by a young girl on a prison wall during the German occupation, inspirited the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs This film by award winning director, Tony Paxton, includes an interview with Henryk Gorecki.