Totus Tuus Op. 60 (English: Totally Yours) was written for unaccompanied mixed choir by the Polish composer Henryk Górecki in 1987. Górecki composed the piece to celebrate Pope John Paul II's third pilgrimage to his native Poland that summer,[1][2] and the work remains his best-known, if not critically acclaimed, a cappella choral piece of the 1980s.[3] Indeed, Totus Tuus has been described as a contemporary classic (Wordsworth 2013, p. 49).
The work was performed twice during the pilgrimage: first at its beginning on June 8, 1987 at the Chopin Airport in Warsaw and later on June 14, 1987 at a High Mass held in Victory Square, Warsaw by the Choir of the Warsaw Academy of Catholic Theology.[4]
The libretto was taken from a poem written by contemporary writer Maria Boguslawska, which addresses the Virgin Mary, the patron saint of Poland.[5] Totus Tuus's form is ABA'CD, and marks a return to the simple homophony characteristic of Górecki's earlier Marian Songs.[6] The composition's texture utilises homophony to allow for a clear voice for the libretto, while the simple chant form is repeated to slowly build a musical affirmation of faith. Gorecki used a homophonic texture in other Marian compositions, such as 1985's Marian Songs, Op. 54, and Under your Protection, Op. 56.[6] This simplification of texture also occurs in Gorecki's most famous work, Symphony No. 3, where a similarly simple, diatonic language is employed to evoke the sparse and repetitive mood of Holy minimalism.[7]
William Helmcke argues that the devoutly Catholic Górecki derived the main motives in Totus Tuus from Poland's oldest hymn, Bogurodzica (Helmcke 2014, 136). These motives are a descending perfect fourth (from notes 3-6 of Bogurodzica); the vertical presentation of that fourth, which explains the numerous second inversion chords; incomplete neighbour (from notes 1-2 of Bogurodzica]; complete neighbour (from notes 5-7 of Bogurodzica); and voice exchange, which functions as Augenmusik (Ibid, 137).