''Totus Tuus'' Op. 60 (English: Totally Yours) was written for unaccompanied mixed choir by the Polish composer

Henryk Górecki Henryk Mikołaj Górecki ( , ; 6 December 1933 – 12 November 2010) was a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. According to critic Alex Ross, no recent classical composer has had as much commercial success as Górecki. He became a l ...

in 1987. Górecki composed the piece to celebrate

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

's third pilgrimage to his native Poland that summer, and the work remains his best-known, if not critically acclaimed,

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

choral piece of the 1980s. Indeed, ''Totus Tuus'' has been described as a contemporary classic (Wordsworth 2013, p. 49). The work was performed twice during the pilgrimage: first time, at its beginning, on June 8, 1987 at the Chopin Airport in Warsaw and second time on June 14, 1987 at a High Mass held in Victory Square, Warsaw by the Choir of the Warsaw Academy of Catholic Theology.

Description

The libretto was taken from a poem written by contemporary writer Maria Boguslawska which is addressed to the Virgin Mary, the patron saint of Poland. ''Totus Tuuss form is ABA'CD, and marks a return to the simple

homophony In music, homophony (;, Greek: ὁμόφωνος, ''homóphōnos'', from ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and φωνή, ''phōnē'', "sound, tone") is a texture in which a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that flesh ou ...

characteristic of Górecki's earlier Marian Songs.Thomas, 109 The composition's

texture Texture may refer to: Science and technology * Surface texture, the texture means smoothness, roughness, or bumpiness of the surface of an object * Texture (roads), road surface characteristics with waves shorter than road roughness * Texture (c ...

utilises homophony to allow for a clear voice for the libretto, while the simple chant form is repeated to slowly build a musical affirmation of faith. Gorecki used a homophonic texture in other Marian compositions such as 1985's Marian Songs, Op. 54, and Under your Protection, Op. 56. This simplification of texture also occurs in Gorecki's most famous work, Symphony No. 3, where a similarly simple,

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize Scale (music), scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, Interval (music), intervals, Chord (music), chords, Musical note, notes, musical sty ...

language is employed to evoke the sparse and repetitive mood of

Holy minimalism Holy minimalism, mystic minimalism, spiritual minimalism, or sacred minimalism are terms, sometimes pejorative, used to describe the musical works of a number of late-twentieth-century composers of Western classical music. The compositions are dist ...

.Totus Tuus:
". crossingchoir.com. Retrieved on February 22, 2009.

Analysis

William Helmcke argues that the devoutly Catholic Górecki derived the main motives in ''Totus Tuus'' from Poland's oldest hymn,

Bogurodzica ] Bogurodzica (, calque of the Greek term ''Theotokos''), in English known as the Mother of God, is a medieval Roman Catholic hymn composed sometime between the 10th and 13th centuries in Poland. It is believed to be the oldest religious hymn or p ...

(Helmcke 2014, 136). These motives are a descending perfect fourth (from notes 3-6 of Bogurodzica); the vertical presentation of that fourth, which explains the numerous second inversion chords; incomplete neighbour (from notes 1-2 of Bogurodzica]; complete neighbour (from notes 5-7 of Bogurodzica); and voice exchange, which functions as Augenmusik (Ibid, 137).

Performances

France

Aix-en-Provence choir Opus 13 performed the score in three concerts in 2011.

United States

The Royal School of Church Music St. Louis summer course performed ''Totus Tuus'' in July 2005 at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. The New Mexico Symphonic Chorus performed ''Totus Tuus'' at St. John's Cathedral in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in April 2012. The Utah Valley University Masterworks Chorale performed ''Totus Tuus'' at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic church in Orem, Utah, October 2012, under the direction of Ryan Roberts. The Choir of Christ Church Christiana Hundred in Greenville, DE performed the work on December 1, 2013.

Notes

Sources

* Helmcke, William. 2014. At the 'Crux' of Henryk Górecki's Totus Tuus, Op. 60: Signification of Polish Catholic Marian Devotion (pp. 136–50). In ''Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology'' 14. Edited Maciej Jabłoński, Jakub Kasperski, Piotr Podlipniak, and Ewa Schreiber. * Thomas, Adrian. 1997. ''Górecki''. Oxford Studies of Composers. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. * Wordsworth, David. 2013. Pushing Boundaries. ''Choir and Organ Journal'': November and December 2013, pp. 47–51.

External links

Performance by the University of Nottingham's Music Society "Mussoc"

Performance by the Choir
of

New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...

Opus 13 Website
* Helmcke's articl

{{DEFAULTSORT:Totus Tuus (Gorecki) Compositions by Henryk Górecki 1987 compositions Choral compositions Minimalistic compositions Holy minimalism compositions