Listen to a blissful new ‘movement’ from Colin Stetson’s reimagining of Gorecki’s Third Symphony

Hear an extract from the American musician’s ambitious reconstruction of the Polish composer’s most famous work.

If you haven’t heard, Colin Stetson’s latest project is reliably ambitious.

The forthcoming album is called ‘SORROW: A Re-Imagining Of Gorecki’s Third Symphony’, and that’s a fairly straight forward explanation of what this beautiful album is – a reinterpretation of one of the world’s best-selling pieces of contemporary classical music.

The American saxophonist, of course, gives the whole thing his own varnish by layering on different genres and instruments while remaining faithful to the original score. Around 12 musicians performed on the album including Icelandic cellist Gyða Valtýsdóttir, Stetson’s sister Megan as mezzo-soprano soloist and Rebecca Foon, co-founder of Esmerine. It’s out on 8 April.

Below you can listen to an extract from the third of the three ‘movements’ which made up the original piece by the Polish composer. Stetson has this to say about it:

“In the third and final movement this is the final refrain. A peaceful lament and an immaculate beauty, I have reveled in it for years and still find its gravity inescapable. By his explanation Gorecki’s Third Symphony is an evocation of the ties between mother and child.”