Szymanowski Karol Szymanowski

Karol Maciej Szymanowski (Polish pronunciation: [ˌkarɔl ˌmat͡ɕɛj ʂɨmaˈnɔfskʲi]; 3 October 1882 – 29 March 1937) was a Polish composer and pianist, the most celebrated Polish composer of the early 20th century. He is considered a member of the late 19th-/early 20th-century modernist movement Young Poland and widely viewed as one of the greatest Polish composers.

The early works show the influence of the late Romantic German school as well as the early works of Alexander Scriabin, as exemplified by his Étude Op. 4 No. 3 and his first two symphonies. Later, he developed an impressionistic and partially atonal style, represented by such works as the Third Symphony and his Violin Concerto No. 1. His third period was influenced by the folk music of the Polish Górale people, including the ballet Harnasie, the Fourth Symphony, and his sets of Mazurkas for piano. King Roger, composed between 1918-1924, remains the most popular opera by Szymanowski. His other significant works include opera Hagith, Symphony No. 2, The Love Songs of Hafiz, and Stabat Mater.

He was awarded the highest national honors, including the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and other distinctions, both Polish and foreign.

Works

Among Szymanowski's better known orchestral works are four symphonies (including No. 3, Song of the Night with choir and vocal soloists, and No. 4, Symphonie Concertante, with piano concertante) and two violin concertos. His stage works include the ballets Harnasie and Mandragora and the operas Hagith and Król Roger ('King Roger'). He wrote much piano music, including the four Études, Op. 4 (of which No. 3 was once his single most popular piece), many mazurkas and Métopes. Other works include the Three Myths for violin and piano, Nocturne and Tarantella, two string quartets, a sonata for violin and piano, a number of orchestral songs (some to texts by Hafiz and James Joyce) and his Stabat Mater.

According to Samson (p. 131), "Szymanowski adopted no thorough-going alternatives to tonal organization [...] the harmonic tensions and relaxations and the melodic phraseology have clear origins in tonal procedure, but [...] an underpinning tonal framework has been almost or completely dissolved away."

Szymanowski's music has received international recognition. In the 1920s and the 1930s, his music proved immensely popular. The composer's works were performed throughout the world by celebrated soloists such as Artur Rubinstein, Harry Neuhaus, Robert Casadesus, Paweł Kochański, Bronisław Huberman, Joseph Szigeti, and Jacques Thibaud and by orchestras led by famous conductors including Emil Młynarski, Albert Coates, Pierre Monteux, Philippe Gaubert, Leopold Stokowski, Willem Mengelberg. European and American performances of his Stabat Mater were world-scale events, progressing successfully in Naples, Paris, Liege, New York, Chicago and Worcester. A performance of King Roger in Prague on 21 October 1932 directed by Josef Munclingr closely reflected the composer’s own idea of the piece, and turned out a huge success, just as the stage production of Harnasie. A Polish recording of his Symphony No. 4 (“Symphonie Concertante”) in 1932 was followed by a series of performances abroad, mostly with Szymanowski at the piano and conducted by Grzegorz Fitelberg. In 1933, the symphony was performed in London, Bologna, Cleveland; Moscow, Zagreb, Bucharest; in 1934 – in Paris, Sofia, London; in 1935 – in Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, Berlin, Rome, Liege and Maastricht; in 1937 – in the Hague.

In 1994, a renowned director Charles Dutoit recorded both of his Violin Concertos with Montreal Symphony Orchestra. English conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, called him “one of the greatest composers of this [20th] century” and produced a series of important recordings with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 2004, Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti won the BBC Young Musician of the Year with a performance of Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1. In 2008 his opera King Roger, which is regarded as his masterpiece, was performed at Edinburgh International Festival under the baton of Valery Gergiev and his renowned Mariinsky opera company. In 2012 Gergiev led the London Symphony Orchestra's performance of all four of the composer’s symphonies at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 2015 opera King Roger was staged in London's Royal Opera House ans was produced by Kasper Holten. In the past two decades, his music has enjoyed a great revival and has been performed around the world. It has been recorded by many prominent conductors and musicians such as Pierre Boulez, Edward Gardner, Vladimir Jurowski, Mark Elder and Krystian Zimerman.