Is the unspeakable singable? : the ethics of 'Holocaust' representation and the reception of Gorecki's Symphony no. 3

A large body of scholarly reflection and critical interrogation has considered questions of the politics and ethics of historical, literary, cinematic and graphic representation of the victimisation of civilians in World War Two (Friedländer 1984; LaCapra 1994; Bartov 1996; Rothberg 2000; Zelizer 2000; Finkelstein 2001; Lang 2003). This paper reconsiders the claim of Holocaust unspeakability through an examination of the massively popular Symphony no. 3 (Symfonia pieśni żałosnych) of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, a work that has increasingly been construed as a Holocaust symphony, in spite of the composer's insistence that it is not (Górecki 1992). It would appear on the surface that the question of the Symphony no. 3 as a 'Holocaust' piece is a non sequitur, since its construction as such occurred primarily through its reception and post factum global marketing rather than as product of its composition. That important distinction may appear to dispel any suggestion that Górecki's work might be subject to the same ethical concerns as other kinds of artistic referencing of World War Two victimhood.