Martin R - Szymanowski - Piano Works, Vol. 1 [CD]

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Karol Szymanowski (1882 - 1937)Piano Music Mazurkas, Op. 50, Nos. 1- 4 Metopes, Op. 29 Etudes, Op. 4, Nos. 1- 4 Sonata No.2, Op. 21Karol Szymanowski was born at Tymoszowka in the Kiev Districtof the Ukraine in 1882, the son of a Polish land-owner and of a mother of Swedishextraction, born Baroness Anna Taube. The family and their immediate circle had a deepinterest in the arts, a fact reflected in the subsequent careers of the five children ofthe marriage as musicians, poets or painters. His sister Stanislava later became a singerand his brother Feliks a pianist. Szymanowski's early education was at home, since a leginjury at the age of four prevented him from attending school in the neighbouring town ofElisavetgrad (the modern Kirovograd), where, nevertheless, he had music lessons from arelative, Gustav Neuhaus, who had a school there. In 1901 he went to Warsaw to continuehis musical studies, taking lessons from the composer Zygmunt Noskowski in counterpointand composition and from Marek Zawirski in harmony.The feelings of Polish nationalism that had inspired Chopin andhis contemporaries continued through the nineteenth century, exacerbated by the repressivemeasures taken by Russia, in particular, in the face of open revolt. Warsaw in 1901,however, remained as provincial as it had been in the time of Chopin, who had sought hismusical fortune abroad in Paris in 1830. The century had seen Polish performers of thegreatest distinction, particularly the violinists Lipinski and Wienawski. The operacomposer Stanislaw Moniuszko, however, a rival to Chopin in his own country, enjoyed onlya local reputation, while his successors, in Szymanowski's esteem, occupied a still lowerplace. Polish music was to a great extent isolated and provincial, a reflection of thesociety in which it existed. The new century, however, brought together a group of youngmusicians of much wider outlook, a circle that included the pianist Artur Rubinstein, theviolinist Pawel Kochanski and the conductor Grzegorz Fitelberg. The last named, thecomposer Ludomir Rozycki and the pianist and composer Apolinary Szeluto, together withSzymanowski, established, under the patronage of Prince Wladyslaw Lubomirski, the YoungPoland in Music group, for the publication and promotion of new Polish music. Fitelberg,by training a violinist and composer, made his later career as a conductor, and directedthe first concert of the group in Warsaw in 1906, when Szymanowski's Concert Overturewas performed. He won later distinction as conductor at the Vienna Staatsoper and in workfor the Russian impresario Dyagilev, before returning to direct the Warsaw PhilharmonicOrchestra and, from 1947, the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice. Kochanski'ssupport was to prove invaluable, particularly in the composition of the first ofSzymanowski's two violin concertos and in a number of works written for violin and piano.Rubinstein, who, like Kochanski, made his later career in the United States of America,proved

Mazurka, Op. 50 Nos. 1-4: No.1

Mazurka, Op. 50 Nos. 1-4: No. 2

Mazurka, Op. 50 Nos. 1-4: No. 3

Mazurka, Op. 50 Nos. 1-4: No. 4

Metopes, Op. 29: L'Ile des Sir\xc3\xa8nes

Metopes, Op. 29: Calypso

Metopes, Op. 29: Nausicaa

Four Studies, Op. 4: No. 1

Four Studies, Op. 4: No. 2

Four Studies, Op. 4: No. 3

Four Studies, Op. 4: No. 4

Piano Sonata No. 2 In A Major, Op. 21: Allegro assai

Piano Sonata No. 2 In A Major, Op. 21: Allegretto tranquillo