Even if you know next to nothing about Górecki, you almost certainly know his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. It was written in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and uses texts including words that were written on the wall of a Gestapo cell by a young Polish prisoner.

In 1992, it was recorded by the London Sinfonietta, conductor David Zinman and soprano Dawn Upshaw – and became a best-seller, even making it into the UK pop charts. It has since sold over a million copies.

A fairly surprised Górecki himself said: “Somehow I hit the right note, something they were missing. Something, somewhere, had been lost to them. I feel that I instinctively knew what they needed.”

The BBC Symphony Orchestra are proud to have given the first UK broadcast of the work in 1987.