Henryk Gorecki with the Kronos Quartet during a 2007 rehearsal in Katowice, Poland. (Artur Gierwatowski/Associated Press)

Polish composer Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki, whose sombre Symphony of Sorrowful Songs became a modern classical hit, has died at age 76.

"We are sorry to confirm the news that Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki has passed away," Beata Jankowska-Burzynska, an official with Polish Radio's National Symphony Orchestra in the southern city of Katowice, said Friday.

Gorecki died in the cardiology wing of a Katowice hospital from various complications.

Joanna Wnuk-Nazarowa, the director of the Polish Radio orchestra in the city, said the composer had been suffering from a lung infection. She and composer Krzysztof Penderecki had visited Gorecki in the hospital on Wednesday.

"Penderecki insisted on seeing him. We tried to joke, make plans for the future. Penderecki promised he would direct [Gorecki's] Beatus Vir for the 80th birthday" that both would celebrate in 2013. This 1979 composition, a psalm for baritone, choir and orchestra, was commissioned by Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla before he became Pope John Paul II.

Gorecki's most famous piece is his Symphony No. 3, Opus 36 for soprano and orchestra, known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, which was first performed in 1977 and in 1992 reached the top of classical music charts in North America and Britain in a recording featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw. It remains one of the world's bestselling pieces of contemporary classical music, having sold more than one million copies.

Divided into three movements, the poignant work starts with a song about Mary the mother of Jesus, followed by a lament for a female Polish prisoner of the Nazis based on a prayer found inscribed on a prison-cell wall, and then a folk tune about a mother's search for her dead son.

'New Simplicity'

Gorecki's early works were regarded as dissonantly avant-garde, but his later compositions embraced a less complex sound, often influenced by traditional Polish music and his country's history. His style, minimalist in harmony and often repetitive, was dubbed the "New Simplicity."

"Gorecki's work is like a huge boulder which lies on our path and forces us to make a spiritual and emotional effort," Eugeniusz Knapik, Gorecki's friend and head of the Katowice Music Academy, told the Polish PAP news agency

Born Dec. 6, 1933 in Czernica, near the coal-mining city of Katowice, Gorecki was orphaned at the age of two when his mother, a pianist, died. He studied music at the Katowice Music Academy, graduating in 1960. He joined its faculty in 1968, becoming its head from 1975 to 1979.

Over the years, Gorecki became linked with the U.S.-based Kronos Quartet, creating works specifically for the string ensemble.

In recent times, he refrained from composing, according to conductor Antoni Wit, who said Gorecki "did not care about a so-called career."

Last month he received Poland's highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, bestowed on him at his hospital bed.

His daughter is pianist Anna Gorecka-Stanczyk and his son, Mikolaj, is also a composer.

With files from The Associated Press