Karol Szymanowski

Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)

Song of Roxanne (1926)

Karol Szymanowski, sometimes called the father of modern Polish music, is the most important Polish composer of the early 20th Century. He perhaps is best-known in this country for his solo piano music and his Stabat Mater for chorus and orchestra, although now his four symphonies, two violin concertos, chamber music, vocal music, and stage works are becoming better known as new recordings become available. Szymanowski's early works show the decided influences of Chopin, Wagner, Scriabin, Reger and Richard Strauss, but as he traveled extensively through Europe and Mediterranean Africa, the influences from the different cultures he encountered, along with exposure to works by Debussy and Ravel, as well as to Stravinsky's early ballets, began to color his work.

After losing his family estate in Timoshovka (now in the Ukraine) following the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), Szymanowski settled in Warsaw in late 1919 and became an increasingly important figure in that city’s musical life. In 1926 he was appointed director of the Warsaw Conservatory, and as he became enthralled with Polish folk music his later works grew more nationalistic, celebrating his Polish heritage. Suffering from tuberculosis, Szymanowski retired to a sanitorium in Switzerland in 1935, and died there in 1937.

A splendid example of the exoticism of Szymanowski's "middle period," the Song of Roxanne is an extract from his 1926 opera King Roger, arranged for violin and piano by violin virtuoso Paul Kochanski (1887-1934), an intimate friend of the composer who frequently offered Szymanowski advice and guidance in writing for the violin.

--Music @ Main, December 8, 2008 (Piotr Szewczyk, violin & Christine Clark, piano)