Symphony No.3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" was completed in 1976 by Polish composer Henryk Górecki (1933 - 2010). In 1992, 15 years after it was composed, a recording of this symphony with soprano Dawn Upshaw, released to commemorate the memory of those lost during the Holocaust, became a worldwide commercial and critical success. It sold more than a million copies. As surprised as anyone at its popularity, Górecki said, "Perhaps people find something they need in this piece of music [...] somehow I hit the right note, something they were missing. Something somewhere had been lost to them. I feel that I instinctively knew what they needed." I bought the aforementioned CD to see what the hype was all about, and I was blown away. I still regard this as one of my five most favourite symphonies. The work is in three movements, described in detail in the Wiki article and the average playing time is 54 minutes (AllMusic). I have two versions, of which I prefer the famous one by the London Sinfonietta under David Zinman with Dawn Upshaw on a Nonesuch CD.
