Karol Szymanowski

Information about Karol Szymanowski

Karol Szymanowski
Karol Maciej Korwin-Szymanowski (October 6, 1882–March 28, 1937) was a Polish composer and pianist.

Biography

Szymanowski (Korwin/Ślepowron coat of arms) was born to a wealthy land-owning family of the Polish gentry in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in present-day Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus' Elizavetgrad School of Music from 1892. From 1901 he attended the State Conservatory in Warsaw, of which he was later director from 1926 until retiring in 1930. Musical opportunities in Russian-occupied Poland being quite limited at the time, he travelled widely throughout Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and the USA. These travels, especially those to the Mediterranean area, provided much inspiration to the composer and esthete.

Enlarge picture
Coat of arms of Ślepowron / other name Korwin


The fruits of these trips included not only musical works, but poetry and his novel on Pederasty Efebos, parts of which were subsequently lost in a fire in 1939. It was translated by him into Russian and given as a gift in 1919 to Boris Kochno. Szymanowski also wrote a number of love poems, in French, to the 15 year old boy. Among these are Ganymède, Baedecker, N'importe, and Vagabond.

Writing about his novel, Szymanowski said, "In it I expressed much, perhaps all that I have to say on this matter, which is for me very important and very beautiful." It remains available in a German translation as Das Gastmahl. Ein Kapitel aus dem verlorenen Roman Ephebos.[1]

Szymanowski died in a sanatorium in Lausanne, Switzerland from tuberculosis.

Appraisal

Szymanowski was influenced by the music of Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Max Reger, Alexander Scriabin and the impressionism of Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel. He also drew much influence from his countryman Frédéric Chopin and Polish folk music. Like Chopin he wrote a number of mazurkas for piano. He was specifically influenced by folk music from the Polish Highlands [Górale], which he discovered in Zakopane, in the southern Tatra highlands, even writing in an article entitled About Górale Music: "My discovery of the essential beauty of Górale (Polish Highlander) music, dance and architecture is a very personal one; much of this beauty I have absorbed into my innermost soul." (p.97) According to Jim Samson (1977, p.200), it is "played on two fiddles and a string bass," and, "has uniquely 'exotic' characteristics, highly dissonant and with fascinating heterophonic effects." Carefully digesting all these elements, eventually Szymanowski developped a highly individual rhapsodic style and a unique harmonic world of his own. He was one of the most original of Twentieth Century composers

Enlarge picture
Szymanowski's house in Zakopane, the Villa Atma (now the Karol Szymanowski Museum)

Works

Among Szymanowski's better known orchestral works are four symphonies (No. 3, Song of the Night with choir and vocal soloists and No. 4, Symphonie Concertante, with piano concertante) and two dream-like 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 Etudes, Op. 4 (of which No. 3 may be his single most popular piece), many mazurkas and the exquisite and highly individual Métopes. Other works include the Three Myths for violin and piano, two masterful 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, an acknowledged choral masterpiece.

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."

References

1. ^ Szymanowski, Karol & Wolfgang Jöhling (1993), Das Gastmahl: Ein Kapitel aus dem verlorenen Roman Ephebos, Berlin: Rosa Winkel, ISBN 3861490099
  • Hubert Kennedy (1994). Karol Szymanowski, his Boy-love Novel, and the Boy he Loved. In Paidika 3.3 Amsterdam
  • Boguslaw Maciejewski and Felix Aprahamian, eds. (). Karol Szymanowski and Jan Smeterlin: Correspondence and Essays. London.
  • Jim Samson (1977). Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900–1920. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-02193-9.

See also

External links

October 6 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events


..... Click the link for more information.
18th century - 19th century - 20th century
1850s  1860s  1870s  - 1880s -  1890s  1900s  1910s
1879 1880 1881 - 1882 - 1883 1884 1885

:
Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -
..... Click the link for more information.
March 28 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events


..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1890s  1900s  1910s  - 1920s -  1930s  1940s  1950s
1926 1927 1928 - 1929 - 1930 1931 1932

Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
none1
Anthem
Mazurek Dąbrowskiego   (Polish)
Dąbrowski's Mazurek
..... Click the link for more information.
composer is a person who writes music. The term refers particularly to someone who writes music in some type of musical notation, thus allowing others to perform the music. This distinguishes the composer from a musician who improvises or plays a musical instrument.
..... Click the link for more information.
For other meanings see Pianist (disambiguation).


A pianist is a person who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with a smaller ensemble, or accompany one or more singers or solo instrumentalists.
..... Click the link for more information.
Anthem
Hymn of the Russian Federation


Capital
(and largest city) Moscow

..... Click the link for more information.
Anthem
Ще не вмерла України ні слава, ні воля  
..... Click the link for more information.
Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism.
If you are prevented from editing this page, and you wish to make a change, please discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or .
..... Click the link for more information.
Warsaw
Warszawa

Flag
Coat of arms
Motto: Contemnit procellas (It defies the storms)
Semper invicta (Always invincible)
..... Click the link for more information.
Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30,221,532 km² (11,668,545 sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area, and 20.4% of the total land area.
..... Click the link for more information.
Middle East is a historical and political region of Africa-Eurasia with no clear boundaries. The term "Middle East" was popularized around 1900 in Britain, and has been criticized for its loose definition.
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
..... Click the link for more information.
Mediterranean is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by Asia. It covers an approximate area of 2.
..... Click the link for more information.
Aesthetic Movement is a loosely defined movement in literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design in later nineteenth-century Britain. Generally speaking, it represents the same tendencies that Symbolism or Decadence stood for in France, or Decadentismo stood for
..... Click the link for more information.
novel (from, Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new", "news", or "short story of something new") is today a long prose narrative set out in writing.
..... Click the link for more information.
Efebos is a lost novel written by Karol Szymanowski, who is best known as a composer. During the difficult period of time around World War I and the Russian Revolution, Szymanowski's childhood home in what is now Ukraine was destroyed, and he found himself unable to compose.
..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1900s  1910s  1920s  - 1930s -  1940s  1950s  1960s
1936 1937 1938 - 1939 - 1940 1941 1942

Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX
..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1880s  1890s  1900s  - 1910s -  1920s  1930s  1940s
1916 1917 1918 - 1919 - 1920 1921 1922

Year 1919 (MCMXIX
..... Click the link for more information.
Boris Kochno (January 3, 1904, Moscow — December 8, 1990, Paris) was a Russian poet, dancer and librettist. He was a lover of Karol Szymanowski while a schoolboy of fifteen in Elisavetgrad (now Kirovohrad) in 1919, where he received as a gift a Russian translation of the
..... Click the link for more information.
For the musical group with the same name, see .


A sanatorium (also sanitorium, sanitarium) is a medical facility for long-term illness, typically tuberculosis.
..... Click the link for more information.
Lausanne (pronounced [loˈzan]) is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva (French: Lac Léman
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno (Latin) (traditional)[1]
"One for all, all for one"
Anthem
"Swiss Psalm"
..... Click the link for more information.
Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism.
If you are prevented from editing this page, and you wish to make a change, please discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or .
..... Click the link for more information.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas" as they were later called).
..... Click the link for more information.
Richard Georg Strauss (June 11, 1864 – September 8, 1949) was a German composer of the late Romantic era and early modern era, particularly noted for his tone poems and operas. He was also a noted conductor.
..... Click the link for more information.
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (March 19 1873 – May 11 1916) was a German composer, organist, pianist and teacher.

Life

Born in Brand, Bavaria, Reger studied music in Munich and Wiesbaden with Hugo Riemann.
..... Click the link for more information.
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (Russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин, Aleksandr Nikolajevič Skrjabin
..... Click the link for more information.
Achille-Claude Debussy (IPA /aʃil klod dəby'si/) (August 22, 1862 – March 25, 1918) was a French composer.
..... Click the link for more information.

This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.