Gorcum

The symphonic poem Gorcum was inspired by the story of the martyrs of Gorcum (Gorinchem), nineteen Dutch Catholics who were hanged in the town of Brielle on 9 July 1572. Their martyr’s death took place at the beginning of the Eighty Years’ War, the revolt of the Netherlands against Spain, which was both a war of independence and religion. After Brielle was captured by the Calvinist Watergeuzen (‘Sea Beggars’), the uprising expanded and the Catholic clergy was increasingly besieged. Monasteries and convents were closed down and priests were persecuted. This was also true for Gorcum, where a group of clergymen were captured and tortured for two weeks. Because they refused to renounce their faith, they were eventually hanged on 9 July 1572, just outside of Brielle, from the beams of a turf barn. We know the names of all nineteen of them and their lives were all documented, so their memory could live on. In 1675, they were beatified and in 1867 canonised. Ever since, Gorcum has been a popular place of pilgrimage that is still visited by many today, especially on 9 July.

This story is the connecting thread in this symphonic poem for horn and concert band. The piece opens with the ‘Inquisitio haereticae pravitatis’ (the investigation into the perversity of heresy), followed by ‘Pugnam ex adverso Alva’ (the fight against Alva) and ‘Dux Domino Lumey’ (William Lumey, the leader of Sea Beggars). A ‘Lento drammatico’ leads to ‘A Martyrum Gorcum’ (The Martyrs of Gorcum), after which the execution takes place: ‘Synopsis – Executio’. The epilogue of the piece is called ‘1834: Inquisitionem abolita est’ and refers to the fact that the Inquisition was not abolished until 1834, during the reign of Isabella II. Even though it had not been active since 1700, the death of Fernando VII (1833) brought an end to the Spanish Inquisition, but it was abolished definitively in 1834, during the reign of Isabella II.