Program 805: There Are No More Tickets to the Funeral
KALW Broadcast Date: November 10, 2024 | Host: Joseph Bohigian
This program features two protest pieces with different religious contexts. Plague Mass, by American singer Diamanda Galás, was recorded live in October 1990 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Known for her AIDS activism, Galás performed the piece in protest of the treatment of people with AIDS, which from 1981 through 1990 had killed more than 100,000 people in the United States. The Polish composer Henryk Górecki wrote Miserere, meaning “have mercy” in Latin, for a cappella mixed choir in 1981 in response to the Polish government’s violent crackdown against activists from the trade union Solidarity earlier that year in Bydgoszcz. The piece was not allowed to be performed until 1987. The program closes with excerpts of Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, a set of variations on the Chilean song “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!”
Program Audio
30-Second Spot
Track Info & Links
Title: Plague Mass
Composer: Diamanda Galás
Performer: Diamanda Galás
Recording Title: Plague Mass
Record Label: Mute
Catalog Number: 9 61043-2
Title: Miserere
Composer: Henryk Górecki
Performers: Danish National Radio Choir; Jesper Grove Jørgensen, conductor
Recording Title: Górecki: Miserere / Gubaidulina: Alleluia
Record Label: Chandos Records
Catalog Number: CHAN 9523
Title: The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Thema, Variations 1–6
Composer: Frederick Rzewski
Performer: Ursula Oppens, piano
Recording Title: The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (36 Variations on a Chilean Song)
Record Label: Vanguard
Catalog Number: OVC 8056
