[5][6] His Anton Webern-influenced serialist works of the 1950s and 1960s were characterized by adherence to dissonant modernism and influenced by Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen,[7] Krzysztof Penderecki and Kazimierz Serocki.

[12] In 1992, 15 years after it was composed, a recording of his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs with soprano Dawn Upshaw and conductor David Zinman, released to commemorate the memory of those lost during the Holocaust, became a worldwide commercial and critical success, selling more than a million copies and vastly exceeding the typical lifetime sales of a recording of symphonic music by a 20th-century composer.

"[13] This popular acclaim did not generate wide interest in Górecki's other works,[14] and he pointedly resisted the temptation to repeat earlier success, or compose for commercial reward.

His father Roman (1904–1991) worked at the goods office of a local railway station, but was an amateur musician, while his mother Otylia (1909–1935), played piano.

[17] Henryk developed an interest in music from an early age, though he was discouraged by both his father and new stepmother to the extent that he was not allowed to play his mother's old piano.

He persisted, and in 1943 was allowed to take violin lessons with Paweł Hajduga, a local amateur musician, instrument maker, sculptor, painter, poet and chłopski filozof (peasant philosopher).

The resulting suppurative inflammation was misdiagnosed by a local doctor, and delay in proper treatment led to tubercular complications in the bone.

Teaching posts were generally badly paid, while the shortage economy made manuscript paper at times difficult and expensive to acquire.

[citation needed] In 1975, Górecki was promoted to professor of composition at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice, where his students included Eugeniusz Knapik, Andrzej Krzanowski, Rafał Augustyn and his son, Mikołaj.

[1] As a senior administrator but not a member of the Party, he was in almost perpetual conflict with the authorities in his efforts to protect his school, staff and students from undue political influence.

[28][29] According to Terry Teachout, Górecki's "more conventional array of compositional techniques includes both elaborate counterpoint and the ritualistic repetition of melodic fragments and harmonic patterns.

[32] Danuta Mirka has shown that Górecki's compositional techniques in the 1960s were often based on geometry, including axes, figures, one- and two-dimensional patterns, and especially symmetry.

His change of style was viewed as an affront to the then avant-garde establishment, and though he continued to receive commissions from various Polish agencies, by the mid-1970s Górecki was no longer regarded as a composer of importance.

In the words of one critic, his "new material was no longer cerebral and sparse; rather, it was intensely expressive, persistently rhythmic and often richly colored in the darkest of orchestral hues".

[34] In 1991, the music critic James Wierzbicki wrote that at this time "Górecki was seen as a Polish heir to the new aesthetic of post-Webernian serialism, with his taut structures, lean orchestrations and painstaking concern for the logical ordering of pitches".

[38] By the early 1970s, Górecki had begun to move away from his earlier radical modernism, and was working toward a more traditional mode of expression dominated by the human voice.

His change of style affronted the avant-garde establishment, and although various Polish agencies continued to commission works from him, Górecki ceased to be viewed as an important composer.

One critic later wrote, "Górecki's new material was no longer cerebral and sparse; rather, it was intensely expressive, persistently rhythmic and often richly colored in the darkest of orchestral hues".

[41] As the historian Norman Davies commented, "His discovery of the earth's motion round the sun caused the most fundamental revolutions possible in the prevailing concepts of the human predicament".

[42] By the mid-1980s, Górecki began to attract a more international audience, and in 1989 the London Sinfonietta held a weekend of concerts in which his work was played alongside that of the Russian composer Alfred Schnittke.

[47] It uses similar repetition techniques as the Second and Third Symphonies, but to very different effect; for example, its opening consists of a series of very loud, repeated cells that together spell out the name of the composer Alexandre Tansman via a musical cryptogram, punctuated with heavy strokes on the bass drum and clashing bitonality between the chords of A and E-flat.

[48] Despite the Third Symphony's success, Górecki resisted the temptation to compose again in that style, and, according to AllMusic, continued to work, not to further his career or reputation, but largely "in response to inner creative dictates".

The first three concerts featured string quartets and the works of three living composers: two Americans (Philip Glass and George Crumb) and one Pole (Górecki).

[30] Górecki's later work includes a 1992 commission for the Kronos Quartet, Songs are Sung; Concerto-Cantata (written in 1992 for flute and orchestra); and Kleines Requiem für eine Polka (1993 for piano and 13 instruments).

[54] Reacting to his death, the head of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music, Professor Eugeniusz Knapik, said "Górecki's work is like a huge boulder that lies in our path and forces us to make a spiritual and emotional effort".

Yet he was an intensely private man, sometimes impossible, with a strong belief in family, a great sense of humour, a physical courage in the face of unrelenting illness, and a capacity for firm friendship".

It was orchestrated by his son Mikolaj Górecki and premiered at the Tansman Festival, on October 16, 2016, at the Polish Radio Witold Lutosławski Studio Hall in Warsaw, by Jerzy Maksymiuk and the Sinfonia Varsovia orchestra.

When placing Górecki in context, musicologists and critics generally compare his work with such composers as Olivier Messiaen and Charles Ives.

Since Górecki moved away from serialism and dissonance in the 1970s, he is frequently compared to composers such as Arvo Pärt, John Tavener and Giya Kancheli.

[36][72] Although none have admitted to common influence, the term holy minimalism is often used to group these composers, due to their shared simplified approach to texture, tonality and melody, in works often reflecting deeply held religious beliefs.