Karol Szymanowski | |
|---|---|
 Szymanowski in 1922 | |
| Born | Karol Maciej Szymanowski (1882-10-03)3 October 1882 Tymoszówka, Russian Empire |
| Died | 29 March 1937(1937-03-29) (aged 54) Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Works | List of compositions |
Karol Maciej Szymanowski (Polish pronunciation:[ˈkarɔlˈmat͡ɕɛjʂɨmaˈnɔfskʲi]; 3 October 1882 – 29 March 1937)[a][1] was a Polishcomposer, pianist and writer. He was a member of themodernistYoung Poland movement that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Szymanowski's early works show the influence of the lateRomantic German school as well as the early works ofAlexander Scriabin, as exemplified by his Étude Op. 4 No. 3 and his first two symphonies. Later, he developed animpressionistic and partiallyatonal style, represented by such works as theThird Symphony and hisViolin Concerto No. 1. His third period was influenced by thefolk music of the PolishGórale people, including the balletHarnasie, the Fourth Symphony, and his sets ofMazurkas for piano.King Roger, composed between 1918 and 1924, remains Szymanowski's most popularopera. His other significant works includeHagith,Symphony No. 2,The Love Songs of Hafiz, andStabat Mater.
Szymanowski was awarded the highest national honors, including the Officer's Cross of theOrder of Polonia Restituta, theOrder of Merit of the Republic of Poland and other distinctions, both Polish and foreign.[2]
Karol Szymanowski was born into theKorwin-Szymanowski family who were members of wealthy Polishnobility from theMazovia region, the capital of which isWarsaw. After the fall ofKościuszko Uprising (1794), his great-great grandfather Dominik was exiled from Poland toDnieper Ukraine. Karol's grandfather Feliks later settled in the village of Tymoszówka, which was then in theKiev Governorate of theRussian Empire and is now Tymoshivka inCherkasy Oblast ofUkraine. His mother came from aBaltic German family that originated inCourland. He studied music privately with his father before enrolling at the Gustav NeuhausElisavetgrad School of Music in 1892. From 1901 until 1905, he attended the State Conservatory in Warsaw, of which he was later director from 1926 until retiring in 1930. During that time, he met a number of prominent Polish artists such asArthur Rubinstein,Grzegorz Fitelberg,Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz andStefan Żeromski.[3] Since musical opportunities inCongress Poland were quite limited, he traveled throughout Europe andNorth Africa.[4][5]
InBerlin, Szymanowski founded the Young Polish Composers’ Publishing Company (1905–12), whose primary aim was to publish new works by his countrymen. During his stay inVienna (1911-1914), he wrote the operaHagith and twosong cycles,The Love Songs of Hafiz, which represent a transition between his first and second stylistic periods. Being lame in one knee made Szymanowski unsuitable for military service inWorld War I, and between 1914 and 1917, he composed many works and devoted himself to studyingIslamic culture,ancient Greek drama, andphilosophy. His works from this period, such asMity (1914;Myths),Metopy (1915;Métopes), andMaski (1916;Masques), are characterized by great originality and diversity of style. The dynamic extremes in Szymanowski's music lessened, and the composer started to employ coloristicorchestration and usepolytonal andatonal material while preserving the expressive melodic style of his previous works.[1]
In 1918, Szymanowski completed the manuscript of a two-volume novel,Efebos, which tookhomosexuality as its subject.[6][7] ("Efebos" orephebos is the Greek term for a male adolescent.) His travels, especially those to theMediterranean area, provided him with new experience, both personal and artistic.Arthur Rubinstein found Szymanowski different when they met inParis in 1921: "Karol had changed; I had already begun to be aware of it before the war when a wealthy friend and admirer of his invited him twice to visitSicily. After his return, he raved about Sicily, especiallyTaormina. 'There,' he said, 'I saw a few young men bathing who could be models forAntinous. I couldn't take my eyes off them.' Now he was a confirmed homosexual. He told me all this with burning eyes."[8]
Of his works created or first imagined, such asKról Roger (King Roger), during 1917-21, both musical and literary, one critic has written: "we have a body of work representing a dazzling personal synthesis of cultural references, crossing the boundaries of nation, race and gender to form an affirmative belief in an international society of the future based on the artistic freedom granted byEros."[6] Szymanowski settled inWarsaw in 1919.
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In 1926, Szymanowski accepted the position of Director of the Warsaw Conservatory, though he had little administrative experience. He became seriously ill in 1928 and temporarily lost his post. He was diagnosed with an acute form oftuberculosis, and in 1929 traveled toDavos, Switzerland, for medical treatment. Szymanowski resumed his position at the Conservatory in 1930, but the school was closed two years later by a ministerial decision. He moved toVilla Atma inZakopane where he composed fervently. In Zakopane, Szymanowski developed a keen interest in the Polish folk idiom and undertook to create a Polish national style, an endeavour not attempted since the times ofChopin. He immersed himself in the culture of the Polish Highlanders (Gorals) and embraced their tonal language, syncopated rhythms, and winding melodies in his music.[1] In 1936, Szymanowski received more treatment at asanatorium inGrasse, but it was no longer effective. He died at a sanatorium inLausanne on 29 March 1937.[a] His body was brought back to Poland by his sister Stanisława and laid to rest atSkałka inKraków, the "nationalPanthéon" for the most distinguished Poles.[2]
Szymanowski's long correspondence with the pianistJan Smeterlin, a significant champion of his piano works, was published in 1969.[9]
Szymanowski was influenced by the music ofRichard Wagner,Richard Strauss,Max Reger,Alexander Scriabin and the impressionism ofClaude Debussy, andMaurice Ravel. He was also significantly influenced by his countrymanFrédéric Chopin and byPolish folk music. Like Chopin, he wrote a number ofmazurkas for piano. He was specifically influenced by the folk music of the Polish Highlanders, which he discovered inZakopane in the southernTatra highlands. He wrote in his article "About Goral Music": "My discovery of the essential beauty ofGoral music, dance and architecture is a very personal one; much of this beauty I have absorbed into my innermost soul". According to Jim Samson, it is "played on two fiddles and a string bass" and "has uniquely 'exotic' characteristics, highly dissonant and with fascinating heterophonic effects".[10]
Aleksander Laskowski has said of Szymanowski's music and its changing style: "He invented a musical language [...] His works were true and ingenious creations. And his oeuvre shows an incredible development from the Straussian and Wagnerian, through an interesting and very romantic Oriental period, and finishing with a national period influenced by his time in the Tatras."[11]
Among Szymanowski's better-known orchestral works are foursymphonies (includingNo. 3,Song of the Night, with choir and vocal soloists, andNo. 4,Symphonie Concertante, with piano concertante) and twoviolin concertos. His stage works include theballetsHarnasie andMandragora and theoperasHagith andKing Roger. He wrote much piano music, including the fourÉtudes, Op. 4 (of which No. 3 was once his most popular piece), many mazurkas andMétopes. Other works include theThree 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 byHafiz andJames Joyce) and hisStabat Mater.[12]
According to Samson, "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."[13]
Szymanowski's music has received international recognition. In the 1920s and the 1930s, his music proved immensely popular. His works were performed throughout the world by soloists such asArthur Rubinstein,Harry Neuhaus,Robert Casadesus,Paweł Kochański,Bronisław Huberman,Joseph Szigeti, andJacques Thibaud, and by orchestras led by conductors includingEmil Młynarski,Albert Coates,Pierre Monteux,Philippe Gaubert,Leopold Stokowski, andWillem Mengelberg. European and American performances of hisStabat Mater were world-scale events, progressing successfully inNaples,Paris,Liège,New York,Chicago andWorcester. A performance ofKing Roger inPrague on 21 October 1932 directed byJosef Munclingr closely reflected Szymanowski's own idea of the piece, and was a huge success, as was the stage production ofHarnasie. A Polish recording of his Symphony No. 4 in 1932 was followed by a series of performances abroad, mostly with Szymanowski at the piano and conducted byGrzegorz Fitelberg. In 1933, the symphony was performed inLondon,Bologna,Cleveland;Moscow,Zagreb,Bucharest; in 1934 inParis,Sofia,London; in 1935 inStockholm,Oslo,Bergen,Berlin,Rome,Liège andMaastricht; and in 1937 inThe Hague.[14]
In 1994,Charles Dutoit recorded both of Szymanowski's violin concertos with theMontreal Symphony Orchestra.[3]Englishconductor SirSimon Rattle has called Szymanowski "one of the greatest composers of this [20th] century” and produced a series of recordings with theBirmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 2004,ScottishviolinistNicola Benedetti won theBBC Young Musician of the Year with a performance of Szymanowski’sViolin Concerto No. 1. In 2008,King Roger was performed atEdinburgh International Festival under the baton ofValery Gergiev and theMariinsky opera company. In 2012, Gergiev led theLondon Symphony Orchestra's performance of all four of Szymanowski's symphonies at the Edinburgh International Festival.[11] In 2015,King Roger was staged inLondon'sRoyal Opera House, produced byKasper Holten.[15] In the past two decades, Szymanowski's music has enjoyed a revival and been performed around the world. It has been recorded by conductors and musicians such asPierre Boulez,Edward Gardner,Vladimir Jurowski,Mark Elder andKrystian Zimerman.[16]
Szymanowski received numerous awards, including the Officer Cross of theOrder of Polonia Restituta; the Officer of theOrder of the Crown of Italy; the Commander of theOrder of the Crown of Italy; the Knight ofLegion d'Honneur; an honorary plaque at theAccademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; the Commander Cross of theOrder of Polonia Restituta; and the Academic Golden Laurel of thePolish Academy of Literature,Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. He was also aDoctor Honoris Causa of theJagiellonian University,Kraków and an honorary member of the Czech Academy of Learning, theLatvian Conservatory of Music inRiga, the St Cecilia Royal Academy inRome, theRoyal Academy of Music inBelgrade, and theInternational Society for Contemporary Music.[3]
On 16 November 2006, thePolish Parliament passed a resolution to name 2007 "The Year of Karol Szymanowski" to honour the 125th anniversary of his birth and the 70th anniversary of his death. On 3 October 2007, theNational Bank of Poland issued special commemorative coins depicting Szymanowski in the following denominations:zl 200, zl 10 zloty and zl 2. TheKarol Szymanowski Academy of Music inKatowice and theKraków Philharmonic are both named for him.[17] On 11 November 2018, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the regaining of Polish independence, PresidentAndrzej Duda posthumously awarded Szymanowski and 24 other distinguished Poles Poland's highest decoration, theOrder of the White Eagle.[18] Szymanowski inspired the character of composer Edgar Szyller inJarosław Iwaszkiewicz's novelFame and Glory (Polish:Sława i chwała).[19]
On 3 October 2023, Szymanowski was celebrated with aGoogle Doodle for his 141st birthday.[20]
Order of the White Eagle (posthumously, 2018)[21]
Grand Cross of theOrder of Polonia Restituta (posthumously, 2 April 1937)[22]
Commander's Cross of theOrder of Polonia Restituta (11 November 1934)[23]
Officer's Cross of theOrder of Polonia Restituta (30 April 1925)[24]_BAR.svg)
GoldCross of Merit (5 May 1931)[25]
GoldAcademic Laurel (5 November 1935)[26]
Commander of theOrder of St. Sava (Yugoslavia)
Commander of theOrder of the Crown of Italy (Italy)
Officer of theOrder of the Crown of Italy (Italy)
Chevalier of theLegion of Honour (France)
Order of Cultural Merit (Romania)
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