Born in 1933 – Henryk Górecki, Polish composer and academic.

Do yourself a favor and listen to Górecki’s Third Symphony, composed in 1976.

This “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” consists of three movements: A 15th-century Polish lament of Mary, mother of Jesus; a message written on the wall of a Gestapo cell during World War II; and a Silesian folk song of a mother searching for her son killed by the Germans in the Silesian uprisings.

The first and third movements are written from the perspective of a parent who has lost a child, and the second movement from that of a child separated from a parent. The dominant themes of the symphony are motherhood and separation through war.