Exploration of Szymanowski
The "Polish music tradition" is extremely difficult to define, because Polish history has been made so turbulent by wars and partitions that a constant musical tradition is impossible to depict.
The Poland inherited by Chopin and Szymanowski was a country fractured by Austria, Prussia, and Russia (1772, 1793, and 1795).
Amy de Sybel, an English pianist with a strong polish affinity, will guide us in exploring Mazurka Op. 50 No 2, from one of the greatest Polish composers of the twentieth century.
Mazurka Op. 50 No.2
Now is the time for us to lay our foundations for the future…let our music be national in its Polish characteristics but not falter in striving to attain universality. Let it be national, not provincial.’ – Szymanowski 1921
In 1922 Szymanowski went to live in Zakopane. He became fascinated by the untouched quality of life for the Goral Highlanders and the purity of their music.
He was able to hear it at impromptu musical gatherings where the highlanders would play for him, and he enthusiastically soaked up the strange, primitive melodies.
Szymanowski transferred the melodies he heard to the piano in the Mazurka form, which achieved his aim of incorporating national characteristics in his music, and fused with universality - the piano medium and Mazurka form - through the shape of the melody.
Mazurka No.2 is a foot - stamping and joyous work, fulfilled with unusual rhythmic fingerprints and lively melodies.
Tellingly, there is a short and achingly beautiful middle section that seems to recall a threatened culture, just before the foot stamping takes over again, and the music ends with a bang.
Marzurka
Mazurka is a Polish national dance that spread to England and the United States at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
It is danced by four or eight couples, and characterized by stamping of the feet and clicking of the heels.
Karol Szymanowski
Szymanowski is considered as one of the most prominent Polish composers of the twentieth concentury.
His contribution towards Polish folk music is comparable to Béla Bartók in the way he forged a distinctive style out of the folk music of Hungary.
Childhood
Szymanowski was born into a musical family in Ukraine, naturally his life was a continuous round of dances, dramas, and music.
Karol’s sister Stasia became an opera singer, and later on starred as Roxana in the first performance of King Roger, which was composed by Karol and his elder brother.
As a composer
His composing career can be most easily envisaged into three very distinctive phases.
In his early years Szymanowski found little to inspire himself in Poland besides Fryderyk Chopin, his musical interest lay heavily on foreign composers such as Richard Strauss, Scriabin and Stravinsky.
During the subsequent period (between 1911 and 1914), he felt a deep affinity with Mediterranean cultures, and travelled to Italy, Sicily and North Africa regions, all the while being clearly influenced by the French impressionists Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.
However, World War I and the Russian Revolution completely overturned Szymanowski's world, and he was unable to compose amidst the upheaval.
After the Great War, an independent Poland emerged out of the chaos, and like many Polish intellectuals Szymanowski was determined to create a truly national art.
Thereby from 1921 his music became increasingly distinctive as he produced many Polish folk theme works.
During that period, he spent more and more time in Zakopane, at the heart of a distinctive folk culture in the Tatra mountains, where he befriended the Obrochta family - one of the leading bands of village musicians - and began to research deeply into the strange highland music.
Szymanowski’s later life
In his last decade he was offered the directorship from the Warsaw Conservatory.
However he was suffered increasingly from tuberculosis. As well financial hardship also brought him increasing pain.
Szymanowski died in a sanatorium in Lausanne, and received a huge state funeral in Krakow, with the Obrochta family playing beside his tomb.