In spring 2005, after 13 years of persistence, patience, and cancelled performances, the Kronos Quartet finally received the score to Henryk Górecki's Piesni Spiewaja (''”songs are sung''), String Quartet No. 3, op. 67 - a 50-minute opus magnum (originally commissioned in 1992). It came with the dedication, ''To the Kronos Quartet, which for so many years has waited patiently for this quartet.'' The quartet's title is inspired by the last line of a poem by the Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov, ''When people die, they sing songs.''