570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 16
Karol Also available: SZYMANOWSKI Harnasie (Ballet-Pantomime) Mandragora • Prince Potemkin, Incidental Music to Act V Ochman • Pinderak • Marciniec Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir • Antoni Wit
8.557981
8.570721
8.570723 16 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 2
Karol SZYMANOWSKI Also available: (1882-1937) Harnasie, Op. 55 35:47 Text: Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) and Jerzy Mieczysław Rytard (1899-1970) Obraz I: Na hali (Tableau I: In the mountain pasture) 1 No. 1: Redyk (Driving the sheep) 5:09 2 No. 2: Scena mimiczna (zaloty) (Mimed Scene (Courtship)) 2:15 3 No. 3: Marsz zbójnicki (The Tatra Robbers’ March)* 1:43 4 No. 4: Scena mimiczna (Harna i Dziewczyna) (Mimed Scene (The Harna and the Girl))† 3:43 5 No. 5: Taniec zbójnicki – Finał (The Tatra Robbers’ Dance – Finale)† 4:42 Obraz II: W karczmie (Tableau II: In the inn) 6 No. 6a: Wesele (The Wedding) 2:36 7 No. 6b: Cepiny (Entry of the Bride) 1:56 8 No. 6c: Pie siuhajów (Drinking Song) 1:19 9 No. 7: Taniec góralski (The Tatra Highlanders’ Dance)* 4:20 0 No. 8: Napad harnasiów – Taniec (Raid of the Harnasie – Dance) 5:25 ! No. 9: Epilog (Epilogue)*† 2:39 Mandragora, Op. 43 27:04 8.557748 Text: Ryszard Bolesławski (1889-1937) and Leon Schiller (1887-1954) @ Scene 1**†† 10:38 # Scene 2†† 6:16 $ Scene 3** 10:10 % Knia Patiomkin (Prince Potemkin), Incidental Music to Act V, Op. 51*** 10:26 Text: Tadeusz Mici ski (1873-1918) Wiesław Ochman, Tenor* • Alexander Pinderak, Tenor** Ewa Marciniec, Mezzo-soprano*** 8.554315 Ewa Marczyk, Violin Solo† • Kazimierz Ko lacz, Cello solo††
8.570723 2 15 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 14
commande d’Emil Mlynarski, de l’Opéra de Varsovie. Le pantomime ne lui était cependant pas un genre Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937): Harnasie (Ballet-Pantomime) Op. 55 La version définitive de l’ouvrage présente bien des inconnu quand, en 1923, il entreprit ce chef d’œuvre. Mandragora (Pantomime) Op. 43 • Prince Potemkin, Incidental Music to Act V, Op. 51 différences avec le projet initial du musicien. En 1923, Trois ans auparavant en effet, il avait signé Szymanowski s’était en effet lancé dans la composition Mandragora, une partition représentée à Varsovie le 15 Karol Szymanowski was born at Tymoszówka in the Władysław Lubomirski the Young Poland in Music d’un mariage goral (le folklore goral est celui de la juin 1920. Sur un livret de Ryszard Bolesławski et Leon Kiev District of the Ukraine in 1882, the son of a Polish group, for the publication and promotion of new Polish région des Tatras) qu’il envisageait en une seule partie. Schiller, d’après Molière, l’ouvrage était initialement land-owner and of a mother of Swedish extraction, born music. Fitelberg, by training a violinist and composer, Finalement la nécessité lui apparut d’adopter une destiné à être inséré dans le troisième acte du Bourgeois Baroness Anna Taube. The family and their immediate made his later career as a conductor, and directed the structure plus complexe : Prélude (Scène rurale) - gentilhomme. Il se présente sous la forme d’un circle had a deep interest in the arts, a fact reflected in the first concert of the group in Warsaw in 1906, when Tableau n° 1 (deux scènes mimées) - Tableau n° 2 (Le intermezzo en trois scènes, pétri de l’esprit de la subsequent careers of the five children of the marriage as Szymanowski’s Concert Overture was performed. He mariage, Chanson à boire, Entrée des Harnasie; commedia dell’arte, où l’on ne manquera pas de relever musicians, poets or painters. Karol’s sister Stanisława won later distinction as conductor at the Vienna Danse) - Epilogue (Dans les montagnes), que les l’influence de Stravinski dont le ballet Petrouchka avait, later became a singer and his brother Feliks a pianist. Staatsoper and in work for the Russian impresario spectateurs découvrirent pour la première fois à Prague on s’en souvient, conquis Szymanowski sept ans plus Szymanowski’s early education was at home, since a leg Dyagilev, before returning to direct the Warsaw le 11 mai 1935. tôt. injury at the age of four prevented him from attending Philharmonic Orchestra and, from 1947, the Polish Situé dans la région montagneuse des Tatras, school in the neighbouring town of Elisavetgrad (the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice. Kocha ski’s Harnasie conte les mésaventures d’une jeune fille Alain Cochard modern Kirowograd), where, nevertheless, he had music support was to prove invaluable, particularly in the contrainte d’épouser un fermier aussi riche et laid qui ne lessons from a relative, Gustav Neuhaus, who had a composition of the first of Szymanowski’s two violin lui plaît aucunement. Par chance, Harnás, chef des En 1925, après avoir achevé Le Roi Roger, school there. In 1901 he went to Warsaw to continue his concertos and in a number of works written for violin brigands, intervient avec ses compères, les Harnasie, et Szymanowski écrivit la musique de scène pour le musical studies, taking lessons from the composer and piano. Rubinstein, who, like Kocha ski, made his enlève la jeune fille qui s’éprend de lui et décide de cinquième acte du Prince Potemkin, une pièce de Zygmunt Noskowski in counterpoint and composition later career in the United States of America, proved an devenir sa compagne. Tadeusz Mici ski. Le poète polonais, engagé dans le and from M. Zawirski in harmony. additional champion of Szymanowski, while Si les thèmes d’origine folklorique sont mouvement “Jeune Pologne”, partageait avec The feelings of Polish nationalism that had inspired Paderewski, a musician of more conservative tendency, omniprésents dans l’Opus 35, ce dernier, parce que sa Szymanowski un goût pour l’ésotérisme et Chopin and his contemporaries continued through the assisted in the wider dissemination of Szymanowski’s composition démarra au tout début de la dernière l’orientalisme. En 1904-05 le compositeur avait mis en nineteenth century, exacerbated by the repressive piano music, favouring especially the famous B flat période du musicien, conserve certaines attaches avec le musique quatre poèmes de Mici ski, et s’inspira d’un measures taken by Russia, in particular, in the face of minor Study, a work that owes much of its popularity to style impressionniste des années précédentes. autre de ses poèmes pour l’Ouverture de Concert, open revolt. Warsaw in 1901, however, remained as his advocacy. Extrêmement fouillée et colorée, l’orchestration op. 12. La musique de Prince Potemkin, dont le provincial as it had been in the time of Chopin, who had The first Young Poland concert in Warsaw had témoigne d’une richesse qui, alliée à la rusticité des manuscrit fut trouvé à la mort de Szymanowski, éploie sought his musical fortune abroad in Paris in 1830. The included performances of Szymanowski’s Variations on motifs, parvient à un résultat éblouissant de relief et très une version dramatisée d’une mélodie populaire des century had seen Polish performers of the greatest a Polish Folk Theme and his Study in B flat minor, suggestif. Szymanowski se refusait à une “transposition Tatras. distinction, particularly the violinists Lipi ski and played by the pianist Harry Neuhaus, and had been well mécanique” des mélodies populaires. Dans Harnasie, il Wieniawski. The opera composer Stanisław Moniuszko, enough received. Berlin, however, proved much less parvient à les transcender avec une science poétique Isabelle Battioni however, a rival to Chopin in his own country, enjoyed interested, when Fitelberg conducted the Berlin rare. only a local reputation, while his successors, in Philharmonic Orchestra in a similar programme in the Szymanowski’s esteem, occupied a still lower place. same year. Szymanowski spent the following two years Polish music was to a great extent isolated and principally in Berlin and Leipzig, absorbing still further provincial, a reflection of the society in which it existed. the influence of Wagner, of Reger and of Richard The new century, however, brought together a group of Strauss, composers of whom he later took a cooler view. young musicians of much wider outlook, a circle that This period saw the composition of his Symphony No. 1 included the pianist Artur Rubinstein, the violinist in F minor, completed in 1907 and given its first Pawel Kocha ski and the conductor Grzegorz Fitelberg. performance in Warsaw two years later. The composer The last named, the composer Ludomir Ró ycki and the subsequently withdrew the symphony and went so far as pianist and composer Apolinary Szeluto, together with to destroy the 1907 piano trio, sensing what seemed to Szymanowski, established under the patronage of Prince him the excessive influence of the post-Wagnerian, a
8.570723 14 3 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 4
reflection of a predominant aspect of music of the time Kocha ski and Rubinstein prudently chose to settle in Bientôt la guerre éclata, laissant Szymanowski loin de que de chagrin, de malheur, de maladie et de travail’, in Germany. The following years brought periods at the United States, but Szymanowski determined to stay ses atrocités. Les séquelles d’une blessure au genou, confiait-il d’ailleurs en 1933 à Iwaszkiewicz. Aux home in the Ukraine and abroad. He wrote his in his own country and to seek there a further source of survenue en 1886, lui évitèrent en effet d’endosser ennuis d’argent s’ajoutait en effet une tuberculose qui Penthesilea, Opus 18, an orchestral work with soprano inspiration, particularly in the more primitive aspects of l’uniforme et il vécut calmement à Tymoszówka chaque jour l’affaiblissait un peu plus. La frustration de solo derived from the Achilleis of the contemporary indigenous music. His reputation grew at home and jusqu’en 1917, quand la révolution bolchévique ne pas être reconnu à sa juste valeur dans un pays auquel Polish painter and dramatist Stanisław Wyspia ski, in abroad, and in 1927 he rejected the offer of a position as l’obligea à abandonner la propriété familiale pour il se sentait viscéralement attaché – en dépit de quelques Italy in 1908, and in 1910 completed a very different director of the conservatory in Cairo in favour of the s’installer à Elisavetgrad. honneurs (ex: docteur Honoris causa de l’Université de Symphony No. 2 in B flat, Opus 19, a work in which the financially less rewarding position of director of the C’est durant la période du premier conflit mondial Cracovie en 1930) – lui pesait beaucoup également. influence of Skryabin is noticeable, as it is in the piano Warsaw Conservatory, which in 1930 became the que les impressions de voyage dont l’artiste était empli - L’abus de tabac, d’alcool, de drogue appartenait music of this period. The new symphony, played under Warsaw Academy of Music, an institution of which he ‘Chaque fois que je mettais la main sur mes souvenirs désormais à son quotidien... Fitelberg in Warsaw in 1911, proved unacceptable to remained rector until his resignation in 1932. d’Afrique ou de Sicile, l’émotion m’étouffait’, confia-t- Début 1937, Szymanowski partit se faire soigner en both audience and critics, but won acclaim in Berlin, The five years that Szymanowski spent at the il se souvenant de cette période - portèrent leurs fruits France. ‘Avant un de mes concerts, au Casino de Leipzig and Vienna, establishing the international Conservatory and the Academy brought many dans des chefs-d’œuvre tels que le Concerto pour violon Cannes’, se souvenait Arthur Rubinstein, ‘j’eus importance of the composer. Szymanowski determined, frustrations, particularly in dealing with musicians of a nº 1 (1916), la Symphonie nº 3 ‘Le Chant de la nuit’ l’occasion d’aller voir mon pauvre Karol, qui était alité after this experience, to live, at least for a time, in conservative turn of mind, and these difficulties finally (1916), les Métopes (1915) et Masques (1916) pour dans une clinique de Grasse. C’était désespérant de le Vienna, where Fitelberg was now employed at the led to his resignation. The remaining years of his life piano, les Mythes pour violon et piano (1915) ou le voir ainsi délabré. Il avait perdu sa voix, ne pouvait plus Staatsoper, and where he reached an agreement with were not easy, without any regular source of income, Muezzin passionné (1918), partition brûlante de désir. que murmurer ( ... ) “je pensais que je ne le reverrais Universal to publish his work. and he therefore made more public appearances as a La dimension érotique est très présente dans l’opéra plus jamais”, ajoute-t-il plus loin’. Vienna proved less stimulating than Szymanowski performer, writing the piano part of his Symphony No. 4 Le Roi Roger, que Szymanowski entama en 1918. Juste pressentiment. Szymanowski était installé had hoped, but the period changed to some extent his in 1932 to suit his own relatively modest piano Travail de longue haleine, l’ouvrage lyrique du maître depuis peu dans une clinique de Lausanne quand, le 29 musical outlook, particularly through his experience of technique, no longer adequate for the more taxing polonais parvint à son terme en 1924 seulement et fut mars 1937, la mort l’emporta. L’Etat polonais lui the music of Debussy and, still more, of Ravel, and of compositions of his earlier career. In the same year he représenté pour la première fois en 1926 à Varsovie. organisa des funérailles officielles et, insulte suprême, the Dyagilev company in Stravinsky’s Firebird and was greatly encouraged by the performance in Prague of Stylistiquement très homogène, il se rattache par son lors du retour de sa dépouille à Varsovie, demanda à ce Petrushka. In March 1914 he left Vienna and travelled his opera King Roger, a work that deals imaginatively langage aux partitions écrites pendant la guerre, tout en que le train fasse halte à Berlin afin que l’Allemagne south to Italy, Sicily and North Africa, returning with a struggle in medieval Sicily between Christianity se révélant aussi tributaire de l’exemple wagnérien dans nazie lui rende les honneurs militaires. through Rome, Paris and London, where he met and an Eastern Dionysian religion, a further example of sa construction. Travail de longue haleine, l’élaboration du “ballet- Stravinsky. The war years he spent in musical isolation his absorption of the essence of other cultures than his Le contraste apparaissait très prononcé avec les pantomime” Harnasie commença en 1923, au début at home at Tymoszówka, turning his attention to a study own, and of his reading of Euripides. autres œuvres que Szymanowski avait fait entendre donc de la période “folklorisante” de l’artiste, et ne of Greek civilisation and literature, to the early history Szymanowski’s final years were clouded by illness depuis 1920 environ et qui traduisaient un changement s’acheva qu’en 1931. “Vous me demandez pourquoi j’ai of Christianity and to the culture of Islam, the last an and he sought an alleviation of the effects of d’orientation radical. choisi un thème rural... C’est à cause de mon extension of an interest aroused by translations of the tuberculosis abroad in Davos, Grasse and Cannes, and Dans une Pologne libérée du joug russe, le musicien attachement profond envers les gens de la région de poems of Hafiz by Hans Bethge, poet of Mahler’s Das finally in Lausanne, where he died on 29th March 1937. découvrait les racines populaires de son art - ‘Je suis en Podhale qui est pour moi comme une seconde patrie. Lied von der Erde, some of which he had set to music in His last orchestral work was the Second Violin train de cristalliser en moi les éléments de l’héritage Certains aspects culturels du monde paysan étant 1911, and exemplified in the remarkable Symphony No. 3, Concerto, completed in 1933, followed by two tribal’, affirmait-il. Les Mazurkas op. 50 (1925), le menacés d’extinction, nous, artistes, avons le devoir de completed in 1916, using poems by the 13th century Mazurkas for piano, written in the following year. Stabat Mater (1925), les Chants Kurpiens (1929), le les préserver pour la postérité”, déclara Szymanowski Persian mystic and poet Mevlânâ Jal l ad-D n ar-Rûmi. The ballet-pantomime Harnasie, based on the story ballet-pantomime Harnasie (1931), les Litanies à la en 1935 lorsqu’on l’interrogea au sujet des motifs qui The Russian revolution put an end to of the abduction of a bride on her wedding-day by Vierge (1933) ou la Symphonie nº 4 ‘Symphonie l’avaient incité à entreprendre la composition de Szymanowski’s period of war-time seclusion. The Harnás and his robber band, the Harnasie, and on music concertante’ pour piano et orchestre (1932) l’illustrent. Harnasie. family was compelled to move, for reasons of safety, to of the mountain Tatra people, won success in Prague in Nommé directeur du Conservatoire de Varsovie en L’élaboration de cette dernière partition scénique du Elisavetgrad, and the property at Tymoszówka was 1935, and with new choreography by Serge Lifar was 1926, Szymanowski ne tirait que d’assez maigres musicien polonais avait débuté à partir d’une suggestion destroyed by the revolutionaries. In 1919 they moved to well received in Paris the following year. It was staged revenus de cette activité épuisante et sa situation de Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz et Jerzy Mieczysław Rytard - Poland, after the proclamation of the new republic. in Hamburg in 1937 with choreography by Helga matérielle demeurait très précaire. ‘Ma vie n’est faite les auteurs de l’argument -, bientôt suivie d’une
8.570723 413 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 12
Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937): Harnasie, ballet-pantomime, op. 55 Swedlund and became part of Polish ballet repertoire strong elements of musical parody, while not without Mandragora, pantomime, op. 43 • Prince Potemkin, Musique de Scène (Acte V), op. 51 only in 1938, when it was staged in Pozna . The work the overt influence of Stravinsky, whose Petrushka had was written between 1923 and 1931 to a scenario so impressed Szymanowski when he saw the ballet in Chef de file de la musique polonaise durant la première Grzegorz Fitelberg. provided, it seems, by Jerzy Rytard and his wife, their 1913. Szymanowski had immediately bought the piano moitié du XXe siècle, Karol Maciej Szymanowski vit le A Varsovie aussi l’activité musicale manquait names omitted from the first programme, and by score, since he found the work, with its essential Slav jour le 3 octobre 1882 à Tymoszówka dans une famille d’éclat et c’est pourquoi Szymanowski s’associa à Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, librettist of the opera King character, coincided very much with his own musical de propriétaires terriens où la musique occupait de Fitelberg, Ludomir Ró ycki et Apolinary Szeluto, deux Roger. In 1921 Szymanowski visited Zakopane, a health inclinations at the time. longue date une place de choix. Son père, Stanisław élèves de Noskowski, pour fonder le groupe ‘Młoda resort in the Tatra mountains, and there studied the rich In 1925, after the completion of King Roger, Korwin-Szymanowski était en effet un remarquable Polska’ (La jeune musique polonaise) dont le premier folk-music and folk-dance of the Górals, the inhabitants Szymanowski wrote incidental music for the fifth act of violoncelliste et pianiste, tandis que sa mère, Anna concert, en 1906, remporta un franc succès, mais qui se of the region, to which his attention had been drawn by Prince Potemkin, a play by Tadeusz Mici ski. This was Taube, se dédiait avec beaucoup de talent au piano. vit reprocher par la suite sa trop grande ouverture à la the folk-music collector Adolf Chybi ski. His interest in not the first collaboration with the poet. Mici ski, Favorisée par ce contexte, l’éclosion des dons musicaux musique allemande. Il est vrai que celle-ci attirait the region continued and he rented a house there until associated with the Young Poland movement, appealed de l’enfant ne tarda pas et il fit ses premiers pas au puissamment Szymanowski, chez qui l’influence de 1936, when circumstances forced him to relinquish it. particularly to the composer and his interest in the clavier sous la conduite de son père. Richard Strauss et de Max Reger s’ajoutait désormais à The ballet score Harnasie makes full use of the folk- esoteric and oriental may have influenced Szymanoswki Conscient des exceptionnelles dispositions de son celle de Richard Wagner. Dominée par la culture music that Szymanowski heard, presented with all the in King Roger. In 1904-5 he had set four poems by fils, Stanisław le confia en 1889 à son cousin Gustav allemande, la première période de la carrière du richness of his imagination and including original Mici ski, another of whose poems provided the literary Neuhaus, directeur d’une école de musique à compositeur allait cependant bientôt prendre fin. elements deriving their inspiration from the primitive inspiration for the Concert Overture, Op. 12. In 1909 he Elisavetgrad. Les années pendant lesquelles ce dernier En 1910, puis en 1911 Szymanowski se rendit en music of the mountain people, with its irregular set poems from Mici ski’s In the Darkness of Stars and eut en charge l’éducation de Karol laissèrent une Italie et en Sicile et s’enthousiasma pour une terre ivre accentuation and vigorous character. his Violin Concerto of 1916 again draws on Mici ski, empreinte durable sur le jeune artiste. Grâce à Neuhaus, de couleurs et de lumière : ‘Si l’Italie n’existait pas, je The short ballet Mandragora was designed for the fantasy of his May Night, while the text for his Third Szymanowski étudia en effet les grands classiques, mais n’existerais pas non plus (....)’, s’exclama-t-il dans une inclusion in the third act of Molière’s Le bourgeois Symphony made use of translations from the Persian by également Chopin et Scriabine, deux modèles qui lettre à son ami Zdzisław Jachimecki. gentilhomme, the pretext of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne the same writer. The music for Prince Potemkin, left in guidèrent ses débuts de créateur comme l’attestent, entre Pour des raisons financières - l’artiste fut sa vie auf Naxos. A pantomime in three scenes designed for manuscript at Szymanowski’s death, makes use again of autres, les Préludes op. 1 pour piano (1900). durant en proi aux ennuis pécuniaires -, Szymanowski the Polish Theatre in Warsaw, the piece was staged a version of a Tatra folk-tune, here transformed for an Autre découverte essentielle, au cours d’un voyage n’entreprit pas d’important voyage en 1912-1913, there in June 1920. It is in the form of a commedia evocative dramatic purpose in music that has a valid à Vienne en 1895, l’adolescent assista à une années toutefois très importantes car c’est à ce moment dell’arte intermezzo in which a bored King and Queen existence apart from the play for which it was originally représentation de Lohengrin. Immédiatement conquis qu’il entra en contact avec l’art de Stravinski lors d’une are entertained by the court eunuch with episodes from written. par les sortilèges wagnériens, il se plongea sans tarder représentation de Petrouchka à Vienne par les Ballets Columbine, Harlequin, the Doctor and the Captain, and dans les partitions du maître de Bayreuth, dont les russes de Diaghilev. L’impression énorme que le finally Monsieur Jourdain himself. The work contains Keith Anderson richesses l’aidaient par ailleurs à oublier la vie musicale musicien russe produisit sur Szymanowski acheva de bien terne d’Elisavetgrad. rompre le lien chaque jour plus ténu qui le rattachait L’engagement de Szymanowski dans une carrière encore à la musique allemande. We regret that we are unable to include the sung texts for copyright reasons. de compositeur ne faisait désormais plus le moindre Cédant à l’appel du sud, le compositeur polonais doute et, en 1901, son père l’autorisa à entreprendre des entreprit en 1914, l’une de ses années les plus heureuses études privées à Varsovie auprès de Zawirski sans doute, un grand voyage qui lui permit de retrouver (harmonie) et de Noskowski (contrepoint et son Italie bien-aimée, mais qui le conduisit aussi en composition). Outre ce qu’il tira de leur enseignement, Afrique du Nord, point de départ d’une véritable Varsovie permit au musicien de faire la connaissance fascination pour le monde arabe et pour l’Orient. d’interprètes dont la fidélité dans l’amitié n’eut d’égal L’année 1914 le vit par ailleurs en France où il entra en que l’ardeur avec laquelle ils défendirent les partitions contact avec Debussy et Ravel - deux rencontres de Szymanowski: le violoniste Pawel Kocha ski, le décisives dans l’évolution de son esthétique. pianiste Arthur Rubinstein et le chef d’orchestre Les nuages s’amoncelaient au-dessus de l’Europe...
8.570723 12 5 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 6
Wiesław Ochman nationalen Idiom entstanden Szymanowskis Das kurze Ballett Mandragora war als Fortsetzung Meisterwerke wie die Oper König Roger, das Ballett von Molières Komödie Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Der Since the times of Jan Kiepura, Wiesław Ochman has been the first truly world-famous Harnasie op. 55 und das Stabat Mater op. 53. Mit Bürger als Edelmann) vorgesehen, die auch die Polish tenor. Born in Warsaw in 1937, he first had the ambition to become a painter, before diesen Werken fand Szymanowski die lang ersehnte Grundlage für Richard Strauss’ Oper Ariadne auf Naxos turning instead to vocal studies. In 1960 he joined the Silesian State Opera and for three nationale und internationale Anerkennung. 1926 wurde bildet. Die Pantomime in drei Szenen, für das Polnische seasons undertook a number of major parts there, while continuing his vocal training with er zum Direktor des Warschauer Konservatoriums Theater in Warschau geschrieben, wurde dort 1920 Maria Szłapak. In the autumn of 1963 he moved to the opera house in Kraków, but a year ernannt, musste aber aus gesundheitlichen Gründen das uraufgeführt und erlebte 31 Aufführungen, bevor later returned to his home city of Warsaw, where the Teatr Wielki was about to be reopened Amt bereits nach drei Jahren wieder aufgeben. Da es Szymanowski es mit auf seine USA-Reise nahm. Das after rebuilding. His performance as Jontek in Moniuszko’s Halka, together with three trotz der allgemeinen Anerkennung um seine materielle Ballett hat die Form eines Zwischenspiels der other productions for the 1965 grand opening of the theatre, became the turning-point in his Situation schlecht bestellt war, unternahm er in den Commedia dell’arte und enthält viele Elemente career. In the same season he also won success singing the title rôle in Faust. This resulted dreißiger Jahren zahlreiche Konzertreisen kreuz und musikalischer Parodie, in denen der Einfluss in an invitation to the Berlin State Opera, where he sang the part of Turiddu in Cavalleria quer durch Europa. Die Strapazen dieser Tourneen Strawinskys deutlich wird, den Szymanowski 1913 rusticana in January 1967, followed by appearances in Munich and Hamburg. At untergruben jedoch seine ohnehin angegriffene kennensgelernt und zeitlebens bewundert hatte. Glyndebourne he sang Lensky in Eugene Onegin, then Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Gesundheit zunehmend, und auch ein Aufenthalt in Nach Beendigung der Oper König Roger 1925 appeared in Salzburg and, something hitherto unheard of for a Polish tenor, gained international fame as an Südfrankreich verschaffte kaum Linderung. schrieb Szymanowski die Bühnenmusik Fürst Potemkin excellent interpreter of Mozart parts. In particular he became a much sought-after performer for the rôle of Ottavio Szymanowski starb in einem Sanatorium in Lausanne op. 51 zu dem gleichnamigen Schauspiel von Tadeusz in Don Giovanni, and the title-role in Idomeneo. In 1972 he appeared at the Paris Opéra, and in the United States, am 28. März 1937. Micinski. Szymanowski hatte bereits zuvor mit dem making his début at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1975 as Arrigo in Verdi’s I vespri siciliani, and going Wie in keinem anderen Werk spiegelt sich Dichter zusammengearbeitet, der zur Schriftsteller- on later to appear there in Eugene Onegin, Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina. Meanwhile in 1982 he had made his Szymanowskis Liebe zu Zakopane und der Tatra in der gruppe “Junges Polen” gehörte. Das Interesse für début at La Scala, Milan, under Claudio Abbado. The recipient of various official awards in Poland, Wiesław Ballett-Pantomime Harnasie, die ihr Sujet aus den Esoterik und Orientalismus verband die beiden Künstler Ochman has an extensive repertoire both in opera and in oratorio. He has the largest number of recordings to his Legenden und Sagen des südpolnischen Volkslebens und Einflüsse Micinskis finden sich nicht nur in König credit among all the Polish singers, both from the present and from earlier generations. bezieht. Das Werk für Vokalsolo, Chor und Orchester Roger. 1904/05 vertonte Szymanowski vier Gedichte entstand in den Jahren 1923 bis 1931 und verbindet von Micinski und ein anderes Gedicht lieferte die Einflüsse aus Strawinskys Kantate Les noces und der literarische Inspiration für die Konzertouvertüre op. 12. Alexander Pinderak Góralen-Musik zu einer neuen Form des polnischen Aber auch das Violinkonzert von 1916 und der Text folkloristischen Balletts. Die Handlung folgt einem für die Sinfonie Nr. 3 gehen auf Anregungen bzw. Born in Cz stochowa, the tenor Alexander Pinderak had his early vocal training in Poland, einfachen Muster: Während einer Bauernhochzeit wird Übersetzungen von Micinski zurück. Das harmonisch going on in 1988 to study at the Łód Music Academy and at the Weber Musikhochschule in die Braut von dem Anführer der Harnasie, einer interessante Vorspiel zum 5. Akt von Fürst Potemkin für Dresden, where he spent five years with the Semperoper. In Vienna he collaborated with the Banditen-Truppe, entführt, doch schon bald entwickelt kleines Orchester und Chor basiert einmal mehr auf State Opera and Vienna Hofmusikkapelle, while undertaking engagements throughout sich eine Liebesbeziehung zwischen der Entführten und einer Volksweise aus der Tatra. Die Musik ist dem Europe, including appearances in 2004 at the opera in Kraków, and in 2006 taking the tenor ihrem Entführer. Mit zwingender Rhythmik, dramatischen Charakter der Textvorlage angepaßt, kann solo in Beethoven’s Choral Symphony with the La Scala Orchestra at the Warsaw-Prague schillernden harmonischen Farben, und der polytonalen aber auch unabhängig von dem Schauspiel musikalische Festival. Since 2008 he has been a member of the Vienna Volksoper, where he made his Schichtung verschiedener exotischer Melodien schuf Selbständigkeit beanspruchen. début as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte. Szymanowski nicht nur ein Werk von außerge- wöhnlicher Kraft und Originalität, sondern auch eine seiner vitalsten nationalen Schöpfungen. Peter Noelke
8.570723 611 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 10
Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937): Harnasie (Ballett-Pantomime) op. 55 Ewa Marciniec Mandragora (Pantomime) op. 43 • Bühnenmusik Fürst Potemkin (5. Akt), Op. 51 Ewa Marciniec graduated with distinction in Composition and Musical Theory and in Vocal- Wie im übrigen Europa führte das Erwachen des deutlich unter dem Einfluss der deutschen Acting in Poland, going on, with a DAAD scholarship to study in Stuttgart. She has politischen Nationalbewusstseins im 19. Jahrhundert Spätromantik. participated in important international master-classes and has been a prize-winner in auch in Osteuropa zu einer Herausbildung verschiedener Durch ausgedehnte Reisen nach Berlin und Wien competitions in Poland and a finalist at ’s-Hertogenbosch and ARD Munich. Her repertoire nationaler Musik-Schulen. In Polen hatte in der ersten vertiefte Szymanowski in den folgenden Jahren seine ranges from the baroque to the contemporary, and she has appeared with leading orchestras Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts Frédéric Chopin die Musik Auseinandersetzung mit der deutschen Musiktradition, in Poland, and abroad in Berlin, Saarbrücken, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, The von west- und mitteleuropäischen Vorbildern vor allem mit den Werken von Max Reger und Richard Netherlands, France, and Israel. She has appeared in opera with the Teatro dell’Opera di emanzipiert, doch ein Stillstand der von Chopin Strauss. Darüber hinaus regte sich aber das Interesse an Roma, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi di Trieste, Teatro initiierten Bewegung hatte die polnische Musik am östlichen Kulturen und Weltanschauungen. Diese neuen Nuovo Giovanni da Udine), and in Germany with Oper Frankfurt, Hessisches Staatstheater Ende des Jahrhunderts in die provinzielle Eindrücke fanden ihren Niederschlag in Szymanowskis Wiesbaden, Staatstheater Oldenburg, and in Austria at the Landestheater Linz. She has been Rückständigkeit zurückfallen lassen. Mit Karol künstlerischem Weltbild und spiegeln sich in den a guest at a number of major international festivals and collaborated with conductors Szymanowski fand sich um die Jahrhundertwende eine Werken, die in jenen Jahren entstanden. Das angestrebte including Marc Albrecht, Tomasz Bugaj, Frans Brüggen, Myung-Whun Chung, Daniele Komponistenpersönlichkeit, die die polnische Musik Ideal der komplizierten, kontrapunktischen Gatti, Toshiyuki Kamioka, Jacek Kaspszyk, Jerzy Katlewicz, Kazimierz Kord, Jan Krenz, Wojciech Michniewski, nicht nur aus diesem Zustand des Niedergangs an die Schreibweise von Reger und Strauss findet sich in der Gabor Ötvös, Marek Pijarowski, Stefan Anton Reck, Jerzy Salwarowski, Jerzy Semków, Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Schwelle der Moderne und erneut auf internationales ersten Sinfonie wieder, der Einfluss Alexander Tadeusz Strugała, Antoni Wit, and Tadeusz Wojciechowski. Niveau führte, sondern mit seinen Werken auch neue Scriabins wird in der zweiten Sinfonie und in der Ziele und Wertmaßstäbe für die nachfolgenden zweiten Klaviersonate offenkundig. Weitere Reisen Ewa Marczyk Generationen polnischer Komponisten setzte. führten Szymanowski nach Paris, wo er mit den Karol Szymanowski fand seinen eigenständigen impressionistischen Werken Ravels bekannt wurde, und Concertmaster of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Ewa Marczyk graduated from the Warsaw Music Academy künstlerischen Weg erst nach zahlreichen Umwegen. Er über Sizilien bis nach Nordafrika. Durch die in 1975 as a pupil of Tadeusz Wronski. She then went on to study in Paris with Jean Fournier. In 1977 she joined the wurde 1882 in dem ukrainischen Dorf Tymoszówka Beschäftigung mit der Antike, den mediterranen Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra where she has served as leader since 1980. She has performed the solo parts of geboren und wuchs auf dem Gutshof seiner Eltern in Kulturen und der orientalischen Mystik geriet der numerous symphonic works, including Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade. einer äußerst kunstsinnigen Atmosphäre auf. Den ersten Einfluss der deutschen Musik zunehmend in den From 1977 to 1983 she was also leader of the Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra with which she toured all Klavierunterricht erhielt Szymanowski von seinem Hintergrund. Die Verbindung des farbig-schillernden over the world. Since 1986 she has worked with the Polish Piano Quartet, with which she performs and records on a Vater, dann übernahm der zur Verwandtschaft der impressionistischen Stils mit antiken, christlich- regular basis. Familie gehörende Gustav Neuhaus seine musikalische byzantinischen und orientalisch-mystischen Erziehung. Bereits 1900 hatte er eine Reihe - zumeist Geisteshaltungen kommt in den Werken wie Des Hafis Kazimierz Koślacz hochvirtuoser - Klavierkompositionen geschrieben, Liebeslieder op. 24 (1914), dem Operneinakter Hagith darunter eine Sammlung von neun Präludien, die als op. 25 (1912/13) und vor allem der dritten Sinfonie The cellist Kazimierz Ko lacz graduated at the State Music Academy in Kraków and was principal cellist of the sein op. 1 veröffentlicht wurden. Ab 1901 setzte er seine „Das Lied von der Nacht“ op. 27 zum Ausdruck. Polish Radio and Television Orchestra there. Since 1981 he has been concertmaster of the Warsaw Philharmonic Studien bei Sigmund Noskowski am Konservatorium in Nach dem ersten Weltkrieg kehrte Szymanowski Orchestra, with which he has played in concerts in many European countries, South America, the United States, Warschau fort. Hier entstand sein erstes Werk für nach Polen zurück und ließ sich in Warschau nieder. Canada, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He has appeared as a soloist in Brahms’s Double Concerto and in Orchester, die Konzert-Ouvertüre E-dur op. 12 sowie Ähnlich wie der Ungar Bartók und der Tscheche Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote with the Warsaw Philharmonic conducted by Kazimierz Kord, and also pursues an die Klaviersonate c-moll op. 8, die beim Chopin- Janáãek begann er, Elemente der heimischen Folklore in active career in chamber music. Wettbewerb in Lemberg den ersten Preis gewann. seine Werke zu integrieren. Besuche in der polnischen Obwohl Szymanowski zusammen mit anderen Tatra brachten ihm die Volkslied- und Volkstanz- Komponisten und Musikern einem Kreis angehörte, der Traditionen Polens nahe, und er entdeckte, dass die frei sich die Förderung neuer polnischer Musik zum Ziel Verwendung melodischer und harmonischer Strukturen gesetzt hatte und später als das “junge Polen” bekannt in der Volksmusik neue Wege in seinem wurde, standen seine ersten Kompositionen noch kompositorischen Schaffen eröffneten. In diesem neuen
8.570723 10 7 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 8
Warsaw Philharmonic Choir Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra: The National Philharmonic of Poland
The Warsaw Philharmonic Choir was founded in 1952 by Zbigniew Soja The first performance of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra took place on 5th November 1901 in the newly and gave its first concert in May 1953 under the then artistic director of opened Philharmonic Hall under the artistic director and principal conductor, Emil Młynarski. The soloist was the the Warsaw Philharmonic, Witold Rowicki. The present chorus-master world-renowned pianist, composer and future statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski, and the programme included Henryk Wojnarowski has held this position since 1978. The choir’s wide Paderewski’s Piano Concerto in A minor and works of other Polish composers, Chopin, Moniuszko, Noskowski, repertoire includes more than 150 oratorios and choral works, ranging Stojowski and Zele ski. In the succeeding years the orchestra won a high reputation, collaborating with leading from the Middle Ages to contemporary music. Each year the choir conductors and soloists, until the outbreak of war in 1939, the destruction of the Philharmonic Hall and the loss of collaborates in some ten symphony and oratorio concerts with the 39 of its 71 players. Resuming activity after the war, the orchestra was conducted by Straszy ski and Panufnik, and Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. These concerts constitute the most in January 1950 Witold Rowicki was appointed director and principal conductor, organizing a new ensemble under important part of its artistic activity. The choir also performs regularly at difficult conditions. In 1955 the rebuilt Philharmonic Hall was re-opened, with a large hall of over a thousand seats the Warsaw Autumn Festival and in Wrocław at the Wratislavia Cantans and a 433-seat hall for chamber music, recognised as the National Philharmonic of Poland. Subsequent conductors Festival. Polish music, in particular works of Krzysztof Penderecki, included Bohdan Wodiczko, Arnold Rezler and Stanisław Skrowaczewski, and in 1958 Witold Rowicki was again Photo: Warsaw Philharmonic Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and Wojciech Kilar, is a very important part of appointed artistic director and principal conductor, a post he held until 1977, when he was succeeded by Kazimierz the choir’s repertoire. The choir has performed all Penderecki’s oratorios and a cappella works, the Polish Requiem, Kord, who served until the end of the centenary celebrations in 2001. In 2002 Antoni Wit became general and Te Deum, Utrenja, Aus den Psalmen Davids, Dies irae, Veni Creator, Song of Cherubim, St Luke Passion, Seven artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic – The National Orchestra and Choir of Poland. The orchestra has Gates of Jerusalem, and Credo, as well as his opera Paradise Lost. The choir performs not only in Warsaw but also toured widely abroad, in addition to its busy schedule at home in symphony concerts, chamber concerts, educational in other Polish cities, and is also very active internationally, with appearances throughout Europe, as well as in work and other activities. It now has a complement of 112 players. Israel and in Turkey. In addition to performances with leading orchestras, the choir has also participated in opera at La Scala, Milan, La Fenice in Venice, and elsewhere. In 1988 and 1990 the choir was invited to the Vatican to take Antoni Wit part in the celebrations of the successive anniversaries of Pope John Paul II’s pontificate, with concerts televised throughout Europe. In December 2001 the Choir together with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra performed for Antoni Wit, one of the most highly regarded Polish conductors, studied conducting John Paul II once again in a special concert commemorating the centenary of the Warsaw Philharmonic, this time with Henryk Czyz and composition with Krzysztof Penderecki at the Academy of presenting the Missa pro pace by Wojciech Kilar. Music in Kraków, subsequently continuing his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He also graduated in law at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Immediately after Henryk Wojnarowski completing his studies he was engaged as an assistant at the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra by Witold Rowicki and was later appointed conductor of the Pozna The chorus-master of the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir since 1978, Henryk Wojnarowski was previously conductor Philharmonic. He collaborated with the Warsaw Grand Theatre, and from 1964 to and chorus-master of the Warsaw Opera Choir where he prepared over eighty opera premières and several world 1977 was artistic director of the Pomeranian Philharmonic, before his appointment as premières. He had studied symphony and opera conducting under Stanisław Wisłocki at the Warsaw Conservatory. director of the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra and Chorus in Kraków. From He has appeared with the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir in numerous venues, presenting both a cappella works and 1983 to 2000 he was the director of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in oratorios, the latter with local symphony orchestras. His choir has participated in many renowned music festivals, Katowice, and from 1987 to 1994 he was the chief conductor and then first guest including Wratislavia Cantans in Wrocław, the Warsaw Autumn, Palermo and Ravenna Festivals, among others. conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria. In 2002 he became General Henryk Wojnarowski has prepared the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir for many recordings for Polish radio and and Artistic Director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. His international career television, and Polish and foreign record companies. He has made numerous international tours with the choir, and has brought engagements with major orchestras throughout Europe, the Americas and Photo: Krzysztof Niesporek also serves as professor of choral conducting at the Warsaw Academy of Music. the Near and Far East. He has made nearly a hundred records, including an acclaimed release for Naxos of the piano concertos of Prokofiev, awarded the Diapason d’Or and Grand Prix du Disque de la Nouvelle Académie du Disque. In January 2002 his recording of the Turangalîla Symphony by Olivier Messiaen (Naxos 8.554478-79) was awarded the Cannes Classical Award at Midem Classic 2002. Antoni Wit is a professor at the F. Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw.
8.570723 89 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 8
Warsaw Philharmonic Choir Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra: The National Philharmonic of Poland
The Warsaw Philharmonic Choir was founded in 1952 by Zbigniew Soja The first performance of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra took place on 5th November 1901 in the newly and gave its first concert in May 1953 under the then artistic director of opened Philharmonic Hall under the artistic director and principal conductor, Emil Młynarski. The soloist was the the Warsaw Philharmonic, Witold Rowicki. The present chorus-master world-renowned pianist, composer and future statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski, and the programme included Henryk Wojnarowski has held this position since 1978. The choir’s wide Paderewski’s Piano Concerto in A minor and works of other Polish composers, Chopin, Moniuszko, Noskowski, repertoire includes more than 150 oratorios and choral works, ranging Stojowski and Zele ski. In the succeeding years the orchestra won a high reputation, collaborating with leading from the Middle Ages to contemporary music. Each year the choir conductors and soloists, until the outbreak of war in 1939, the destruction of the Philharmonic Hall and the loss of collaborates in some ten symphony and oratorio concerts with the 39 of its 71 players. Resuming activity after the war, the orchestra was conducted by Straszy ski and Panufnik, and Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. These concerts constitute the most in January 1950 Witold Rowicki was appointed director and principal conductor, organizing a new ensemble under important part of its artistic activity. The choir also performs regularly at difficult conditions. In 1955 the rebuilt Philharmonic Hall was re-opened, with a large hall of over a thousand seats the Warsaw Autumn Festival and in Wrocław at the Wratislavia Cantans and a 433-seat hall for chamber music, recognised as the National Philharmonic of Poland. Subsequent conductors Festival. Polish music, in particular works of Krzysztof Penderecki, included Bohdan Wodiczko, Arnold Rezler and Stanisław Skrowaczewski, and in 1958 Witold Rowicki was again Photo: Warsaw Philharmonic Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and Wojciech Kilar, is a very important part of appointed artistic director and principal conductor, a post he held until 1977, when he was succeeded by Kazimierz the choir’s repertoire. The choir has performed all Penderecki’s oratorios and a cappella works, the Polish Requiem, Kord, who served until the end of the centenary celebrations in 2001. In 2002 Antoni Wit became general and Te Deum, Utrenja, Aus den Psalmen Davids, Dies irae, Veni Creator, Song of Cherubim, St Luke Passion, Seven artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic – The National Orchestra and Choir of Poland. The orchestra has Gates of Jerusalem, and Credo, as well as his opera Paradise Lost. The choir performs not only in Warsaw but also toured widely abroad, in addition to its busy schedule at home in symphony concerts, chamber concerts, educational in other Polish cities, and is also very active internationally, with appearances throughout Europe, as well as in work and other activities. It now has a complement of 112 players. Israel and in Turkey. In addition to performances with leading orchestras, the choir has also participated in opera at La Scala, Milan, La Fenice in Venice, and elsewhere. In 1988 and 1990 the choir was invited to the Vatican to take Antoni Wit part in the celebrations of the successive anniversaries of Pope John Paul II’s pontificate, with concerts televised throughout Europe. In December 2001 the Choir together with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra performed for Antoni Wit, one of the most highly regarded Polish conductors, studied conducting John Paul II once again in a special concert commemorating the centenary of the Warsaw Philharmonic, this time with Henryk Czyz and composition with Krzysztof Penderecki at the Academy of presenting the Missa pro pace by Wojciech Kilar. Music in Kraków, subsequently continuing his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He also graduated in law at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Immediately after Henryk Wojnarowski completing his studies he was engaged as an assistant at the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra by Witold Rowicki and was later appointed conductor of the Pozna The chorus-master of the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir since 1978, Henryk Wojnarowski was previously conductor Philharmonic. He collaborated with the Warsaw Grand Theatre, and from 1964 to and chorus-master of the Warsaw Opera Choir where he prepared over eighty opera premières and several world 1977 was artistic director of the Pomeranian Philharmonic, before his appointment as premières. He had studied symphony and opera conducting under Stanisław Wisłocki at the Warsaw Conservatory. director of the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra and Chorus in Kraków. From He has appeared with the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir in numerous venues, presenting both a cappella works and 1983 to 2000 he was the director of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in oratorios, the latter with local symphony orchestras. His choir has participated in many renowned music festivals, Katowice, and from 1987 to 1994 he was the chief conductor and then first guest including Wratislavia Cantans in Wrocław, the Warsaw Autumn, Palermo and Ravenna Festivals, among others. conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria. In 2002 he became General Henryk Wojnarowski has prepared the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir for many recordings for Polish radio and and Artistic Director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. His international career television, and Polish and foreign record companies. He has made numerous international tours with the choir, and has brought engagements with major orchestras throughout Europe, the Americas and Photo: Krzysztof Niesporek also serves as professor of choral conducting at the Warsaw Academy of Music. the Near and Far East. He has made nearly a hundred records, including an acclaimed release for Naxos of the piano concertos of Prokofiev, awarded the Diapason d’Or and Grand Prix du Disque de la Nouvelle Académie du Disque. In January 2002 his recording of the Turangalîla Symphony by Olivier Messiaen (Naxos 8.554478-79) was awarded the Cannes Classical Award at Midem Classic 2002. Antoni Wit is a professor at the F. Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw.
8.570723 89 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 10
Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937): Harnasie (Ballett-Pantomime) op. 55 Ewa Marciniec Mandragora (Pantomime) op. 43 • Bühnenmusik Fürst Potemkin (5. Akt), Op. 51 Ewa Marciniec graduated with distinction in Composition and Musical Theory and in Vocal- Wie im übrigen Europa führte das Erwachen des deutlich unter dem Einfluss der deutschen Acting in Poland, going on, with a DAAD scholarship to study in Stuttgart. She has politischen Nationalbewusstseins im 19. Jahrhundert Spätromantik. participated in important international master-classes and has been a prize-winner in auch in Osteuropa zu einer Herausbildung verschiedener Durch ausgedehnte Reisen nach Berlin und Wien competitions in Poland and a finalist at ’s-Hertogenbosch and ARD Munich. Her repertoire nationaler Musik-Schulen. In Polen hatte in der ersten vertiefte Szymanowski in den folgenden Jahren seine ranges from the baroque to the contemporary, and she has appeared with leading orchestras Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts Frédéric Chopin die Musik Auseinandersetzung mit der deutschen Musiktradition, in Poland, and abroad in Berlin, Saarbrücken, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, The von west- und mitteleuropäischen Vorbildern vor allem mit den Werken von Max Reger und Richard Netherlands, France, and Israel. She has appeared in opera with the Teatro dell’Opera di emanzipiert, doch ein Stillstand der von Chopin Strauss. Darüber hinaus regte sich aber das Interesse an Roma, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi di Trieste, Teatro initiierten Bewegung hatte die polnische Musik am östlichen Kulturen und Weltanschauungen. Diese neuen Nuovo Giovanni da Udine), and in Germany with Oper Frankfurt, Hessisches Staatstheater Ende des Jahrhunderts in die provinzielle Eindrücke fanden ihren Niederschlag in Szymanowskis Wiesbaden, Staatstheater Oldenburg, and in Austria at the Landestheater Linz. She has been Rückständigkeit zurückfallen lassen. Mit Karol künstlerischem Weltbild und spiegeln sich in den a guest at a number of major international festivals and collaborated with conductors Szymanowski fand sich um die Jahrhundertwende eine Werken, die in jenen Jahren entstanden. Das angestrebte including Marc Albrecht, Tomasz Bugaj, Frans Brüggen, Myung-Whun Chung, Daniele Komponistenpersönlichkeit, die die polnische Musik Ideal der komplizierten, kontrapunktischen Gatti, Toshiyuki Kamioka, Jacek Kaspszyk, Jerzy Katlewicz, Kazimierz Kord, Jan Krenz, Wojciech Michniewski, nicht nur aus diesem Zustand des Niedergangs an die Schreibweise von Reger und Strauss findet sich in der Gabor Ötvös, Marek Pijarowski, Stefan Anton Reck, Jerzy Salwarowski, Jerzy Semków, Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Schwelle der Moderne und erneut auf internationales ersten Sinfonie wieder, der Einfluss Alexander Tadeusz Strugała, Antoni Wit, and Tadeusz Wojciechowski. Niveau führte, sondern mit seinen Werken auch neue Scriabins wird in der zweiten Sinfonie und in der Ziele und Wertmaßstäbe für die nachfolgenden zweiten Klaviersonate offenkundig. Weitere Reisen Ewa Marczyk Generationen polnischer Komponisten setzte. führten Szymanowski nach Paris, wo er mit den Karol Szymanowski fand seinen eigenständigen impressionistischen Werken Ravels bekannt wurde, und Concertmaster of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Ewa Marczyk graduated from the Warsaw Music Academy künstlerischen Weg erst nach zahlreichen Umwegen. Er über Sizilien bis nach Nordafrika. Durch die in 1975 as a pupil of Tadeusz Wronski. She then went on to study in Paris with Jean Fournier. In 1977 she joined the wurde 1882 in dem ukrainischen Dorf Tymoszówka Beschäftigung mit der Antike, den mediterranen Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra where she has served as leader since 1980. She has performed the solo parts of geboren und wuchs auf dem Gutshof seiner Eltern in Kulturen und der orientalischen Mystik geriet der numerous symphonic works, including Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade. einer äußerst kunstsinnigen Atmosphäre auf. Den ersten Einfluss der deutschen Musik zunehmend in den From 1977 to 1983 she was also leader of the Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra with which she toured all Klavierunterricht erhielt Szymanowski von seinem Hintergrund. Die Verbindung des farbig-schillernden over the world. Since 1986 she has worked with the Polish Piano Quartet, with which she performs and records on a Vater, dann übernahm der zur Verwandtschaft der impressionistischen Stils mit antiken, christlich- regular basis. Familie gehörende Gustav Neuhaus seine musikalische byzantinischen und orientalisch-mystischen Erziehung. Bereits 1900 hatte er eine Reihe - zumeist Geisteshaltungen kommt in den Werken wie Des Hafis Kazimierz Koślacz hochvirtuoser - Klavierkompositionen geschrieben, Liebeslieder op. 24 (1914), dem Operneinakter Hagith darunter eine Sammlung von neun Präludien, die als op. 25 (1912/13) und vor allem der dritten Sinfonie The cellist Kazimierz Ko lacz graduated at the State Music Academy in Kraków and was principal cellist of the sein op. 1 veröffentlicht wurden. Ab 1901 setzte er seine „Das Lied von der Nacht“ op. 27 zum Ausdruck. Polish Radio and Television Orchestra there. Since 1981 he has been concertmaster of the Warsaw Philharmonic Studien bei Sigmund Noskowski am Konservatorium in Nach dem ersten Weltkrieg kehrte Szymanowski Orchestra, with which he has played in concerts in many European countries, South America, the United States, Warschau fort. Hier entstand sein erstes Werk für nach Polen zurück und ließ sich in Warschau nieder. Canada, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He has appeared as a soloist in Brahms’s Double Concerto and in Orchester, die Konzert-Ouvertüre E-dur op. 12 sowie Ähnlich wie der Ungar Bartók und der Tscheche Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote with the Warsaw Philharmonic conducted by Kazimierz Kord, and also pursues an die Klaviersonate c-moll op. 8, die beim Chopin- Janáãek begann er, Elemente der heimischen Folklore in active career in chamber music. Wettbewerb in Lemberg den ersten Preis gewann. seine Werke zu integrieren. Besuche in der polnischen Obwohl Szymanowski zusammen mit anderen Tatra brachten ihm die Volkslied- und Volkstanz- Komponisten und Musikern einem Kreis angehörte, der Traditionen Polens nahe, und er entdeckte, dass die frei sich die Förderung neuer polnischer Musik zum Ziel Verwendung melodischer und harmonischer Strukturen gesetzt hatte und später als das “junge Polen” bekannt in der Volksmusik neue Wege in seinem wurde, standen seine ersten Kompositionen noch kompositorischen Schaffen eröffneten. In diesem neuen
8.570723 10 7 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 6
Wiesław Ochman nationalen Idiom entstanden Szymanowskis Das kurze Ballett Mandragora war als Fortsetzung Meisterwerke wie die Oper König Roger, das Ballett von Molières Komödie Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Der Since the times of Jan Kiepura, Wiesław Ochman has been the first truly world-famous Harnasie op. 55 und das Stabat Mater op. 53. Mit Bürger als Edelmann) vorgesehen, die auch die Polish tenor. Born in Warsaw in 1937, he first had the ambition to become a painter, before diesen Werken fand Szymanowski die lang ersehnte Grundlage für Richard Strauss’ Oper Ariadne auf Naxos turning instead to vocal studies. In 1960 he joined the Silesian State Opera and for three nationale und internationale Anerkennung. 1926 wurde bildet. Die Pantomime in drei Szenen, für das Polnische seasons undertook a number of major parts there, while continuing his vocal training with er zum Direktor des Warschauer Konservatoriums Theater in Warschau geschrieben, wurde dort 1920 Maria Szłapak. In the autumn of 1963 he moved to the opera house in Kraków, but a year ernannt, musste aber aus gesundheitlichen Gründen das uraufgeführt und erlebte 31 Aufführungen, bevor later returned to his home city of Warsaw, where the Teatr Wielki was about to be reopened Amt bereits nach drei Jahren wieder aufgeben. Da es Szymanowski es mit auf seine USA-Reise nahm. Das after rebuilding. His performance as Jontek in Moniuszko’s Halka, together with three trotz der allgemeinen Anerkennung um seine materielle Ballett hat die Form eines Zwischenspiels der other productions for the 1965 grand opening of the theatre, became the turning-point in his Situation schlecht bestellt war, unternahm er in den Commedia dell’arte und enthält viele Elemente career. In the same season he also won success singing the title rôle in Faust. This resulted dreißiger Jahren zahlreiche Konzertreisen kreuz und musikalischer Parodie, in denen der Einfluss in an invitation to the Berlin State Opera, where he sang the part of Turiddu in Cavalleria quer durch Europa. Die Strapazen dieser Tourneen Strawinskys deutlich wird, den Szymanowski 1913 rusticana in January 1967, followed by appearances in Munich and Hamburg. At untergruben jedoch seine ohnehin angegriffene kennensgelernt und zeitlebens bewundert hatte. Glyndebourne he sang Lensky in Eugene Onegin, then Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Gesundheit zunehmend, und auch ein Aufenthalt in Nach Beendigung der Oper König Roger 1925 appeared in Salzburg and, something hitherto unheard of for a Polish tenor, gained international fame as an Südfrankreich verschaffte kaum Linderung. schrieb Szymanowski die Bühnenmusik Fürst Potemkin excellent interpreter of Mozart parts. In particular he became a much sought-after performer for the rôle of Ottavio Szymanowski starb in einem Sanatorium in Lausanne op. 51 zu dem gleichnamigen Schauspiel von Tadeusz in Don Giovanni, and the title-role in Idomeneo. In 1972 he appeared at the Paris Opéra, and in the United States, am 28. März 1937. Micinski. Szymanowski hatte bereits zuvor mit dem making his début at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1975 as Arrigo in Verdi’s I vespri siciliani, and going Wie in keinem anderen Werk spiegelt sich Dichter zusammengearbeitet, der zur Schriftsteller- on later to appear there in Eugene Onegin, Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina. Meanwhile in 1982 he had made his Szymanowskis Liebe zu Zakopane und der Tatra in der gruppe “Junges Polen” gehörte. Das Interesse für début at La Scala, Milan, under Claudio Abbado. The recipient of various official awards in Poland, Wiesław Ballett-Pantomime Harnasie, die ihr Sujet aus den Esoterik und Orientalismus verband die beiden Künstler Ochman has an extensive repertoire both in opera and in oratorio. He has the largest number of recordings to his Legenden und Sagen des südpolnischen Volkslebens und Einflüsse Micinskis finden sich nicht nur in König credit among all the Polish singers, both from the present and from earlier generations. bezieht. Das Werk für Vokalsolo, Chor und Orchester Roger. 1904/05 vertonte Szymanowski vier Gedichte entstand in den Jahren 1923 bis 1931 und verbindet von Micinski und ein anderes Gedicht lieferte die Einflüsse aus Strawinskys Kantate Les noces und der literarische Inspiration für die Konzertouvertüre op. 12. Alexander Pinderak Góralen-Musik zu einer neuen Form des polnischen Aber auch das Violinkonzert von 1916 und der Text folkloristischen Balletts. Die Handlung folgt einem für die Sinfonie Nr. 3 gehen auf Anregungen bzw. Born in Cz stochowa, the tenor Alexander Pinderak had his early vocal training in Poland, einfachen Muster: Während einer Bauernhochzeit wird Übersetzungen von Micinski zurück. Das harmonisch going on in 1988 to study at the Łód Music Academy and at the Weber Musikhochschule in die Braut von dem Anführer der Harnasie, einer interessante Vorspiel zum 5. Akt von Fürst Potemkin für Dresden, where he spent five years with the Semperoper. In Vienna he collaborated with the Banditen-Truppe, entführt, doch schon bald entwickelt kleines Orchester und Chor basiert einmal mehr auf State Opera and Vienna Hofmusikkapelle, while undertaking engagements throughout sich eine Liebesbeziehung zwischen der Entführten und einer Volksweise aus der Tatra. Die Musik ist dem Europe, including appearances in 2004 at the opera in Kraków, and in 2006 taking the tenor ihrem Entführer. Mit zwingender Rhythmik, dramatischen Charakter der Textvorlage angepaßt, kann solo in Beethoven’s Choral Symphony with the La Scala Orchestra at the Warsaw-Prague schillernden harmonischen Farben, und der polytonalen aber auch unabhängig von dem Schauspiel musikalische Festival. Since 2008 he has been a member of the Vienna Volksoper, where he made his Schichtung verschiedener exotischer Melodien schuf Selbständigkeit beanspruchen. début as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte. Szymanowski nicht nur ein Werk von außerge- wöhnlicher Kraft und Originalität, sondern auch eine seiner vitalsten nationalen Schöpfungen. Peter Noelke
8.570723 611 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 12
Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937): Harnasie, ballet-pantomime, op. 55 Swedlund and became part of Polish ballet repertoire strong elements of musical parody, while not without Mandragora, pantomime, op. 43 • Prince Potemkin, Musique de Scène (Acte V), op. 51 only in 1938, when it was staged in Pozna . The work the overt influence of Stravinsky, whose Petrushka had was written between 1923 and 1931 to a scenario so impressed Szymanowski when he saw the ballet in Chef de file de la musique polonaise durant la première Grzegorz Fitelberg. provided, it seems, by Jerzy Rytard and his wife, their 1913. Szymanowski had immediately bought the piano moitié du XXe siècle, Karol Maciej Szymanowski vit le A Varsovie aussi l’activité musicale manquait names omitted from the first programme, and by score, since he found the work, with its essential Slav jour le 3 octobre 1882 à Tymoszówka dans une famille d’éclat et c’est pourquoi Szymanowski s’associa à Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, librettist of the opera King character, coincided very much with his own musical de propriétaires terriens où la musique occupait de Fitelberg, Ludomir Ró ycki et Apolinary Szeluto, deux Roger. In 1921 Szymanowski visited Zakopane, a health inclinations at the time. longue date une place de choix. Son père, Stanisław élèves de Noskowski, pour fonder le groupe ‘Młoda resort in the Tatra mountains, and there studied the rich In 1925, after the completion of King Roger, Korwin-Szymanowski était en effet un remarquable Polska’ (La jeune musique polonaise) dont le premier folk-music and folk-dance of the Górals, the inhabitants Szymanowski wrote incidental music for the fifth act of violoncelliste et pianiste, tandis que sa mère, Anna concert, en 1906, remporta un franc succès, mais qui se of the region, to which his attention had been drawn by Prince Potemkin, a play by Tadeusz Mici ski. This was Taube, se dédiait avec beaucoup de talent au piano. vit reprocher par la suite sa trop grande ouverture à la the folk-music collector Adolf Chybi ski. His interest in not the first collaboration with the poet. Mici ski, Favorisée par ce contexte, l’éclosion des dons musicaux musique allemande. Il est vrai que celle-ci attirait the region continued and he rented a house there until associated with the Young Poland movement, appealed de l’enfant ne tarda pas et il fit ses premiers pas au puissamment Szymanowski, chez qui l’influence de 1936, when circumstances forced him to relinquish it. particularly to the composer and his interest in the clavier sous la conduite de son père. Richard Strauss et de Max Reger s’ajoutait désormais à The ballet score Harnasie makes full use of the folk- esoteric and oriental may have influenced Szymanoswki Conscient des exceptionnelles dispositions de son celle de Richard Wagner. Dominée par la culture music that Szymanowski heard, presented with all the in King Roger. In 1904-5 he had set four poems by fils, Stanisław le confia en 1889 à son cousin Gustav allemande, la première période de la carrière du richness of his imagination and including original Mici ski, another of whose poems provided the literary Neuhaus, directeur d’une école de musique à compositeur allait cependant bientôt prendre fin. elements deriving their inspiration from the primitive inspiration for the Concert Overture, Op. 12. In 1909 he Elisavetgrad. Les années pendant lesquelles ce dernier En 1910, puis en 1911 Szymanowski se rendit en music of the mountain people, with its irregular set poems from Mici ski’s In the Darkness of Stars and eut en charge l’éducation de Karol laissèrent une Italie et en Sicile et s’enthousiasma pour une terre ivre accentuation and vigorous character. his Violin Concerto of 1916 again draws on Mici ski, empreinte durable sur le jeune artiste. Grâce à Neuhaus, de couleurs et de lumière : ‘Si l’Italie n’existait pas, je The short ballet Mandragora was designed for the fantasy of his May Night, while the text for his Third Szymanowski étudia en effet les grands classiques, mais n’existerais pas non plus (....)’, s’exclama-t-il dans une inclusion in the third act of Molière’s Le bourgeois Symphony made use of translations from the Persian by également Chopin et Scriabine, deux modèles qui lettre à son ami Zdzisław Jachimecki. gentilhomme, the pretext of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne the same writer. The music for Prince Potemkin, left in guidèrent ses débuts de créateur comme l’attestent, entre Pour des raisons financières - l’artiste fut sa vie auf Naxos. A pantomime in three scenes designed for manuscript at Szymanowski’s death, makes use again of autres, les Préludes op. 1 pour piano (1900). durant en proi aux ennuis pécuniaires -, Szymanowski the Polish Theatre in Warsaw, the piece was staged a version of a Tatra folk-tune, here transformed for an Autre découverte essentielle, au cours d’un voyage n’entreprit pas d’important voyage en 1912-1913, there in June 1920. It is in the form of a commedia evocative dramatic purpose in music that has a valid à Vienne en 1895, l’adolescent assista à une années toutefois très importantes car c’est à ce moment dell’arte intermezzo in which a bored King and Queen existence apart from the play for which it was originally représentation de Lohengrin. Immédiatement conquis qu’il entra en contact avec l’art de Stravinski lors d’une are entertained by the court eunuch with episodes from written. par les sortilèges wagnériens, il se plongea sans tarder représentation de Petrouchka à Vienne par les Ballets Columbine, Harlequin, the Doctor and the Captain, and dans les partitions du maître de Bayreuth, dont les russes de Diaghilev. L’impression énorme que le finally Monsieur Jourdain himself. The work contains Keith Anderson richesses l’aidaient par ailleurs à oublier la vie musicale musicien russe produisit sur Szymanowski acheva de bien terne d’Elisavetgrad. rompre le lien chaque jour plus ténu qui le rattachait L’engagement de Szymanowski dans une carrière encore à la musique allemande. We regret that we are unable to include the sung texts for copyright reasons. de compositeur ne faisait désormais plus le moindre Cédant à l’appel du sud, le compositeur polonais doute et, en 1901, son père l’autorisa à entreprendre des entreprit en 1914, l’une de ses années les plus heureuses études privées à Varsovie auprès de Zawirski sans doute, un grand voyage qui lui permit de retrouver (harmonie) et de Noskowski (contrepoint et son Italie bien-aimée, mais qui le conduisit aussi en composition). Outre ce qu’il tira de leur enseignement, Afrique du Nord, point de départ d’une véritable Varsovie permit au musicien de faire la connaissance fascination pour le monde arabe et pour l’Orient. d’interprètes dont la fidélité dans l’amitié n’eut d’égal L’année 1914 le vit par ailleurs en France où il entra en que l’ardeur avec laquelle ils défendirent les partitions contact avec Debussy et Ravel - deux rencontres de Szymanowski: le violoniste Pawel Kocha ski, le décisives dans l’évolution de son esthétique. pianiste Arthur Rubinstein et le chef d’orchestre Les nuages s’amoncelaient au-dessus de l’Europe...
8.570723 12 5 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 4
reflection of a predominant aspect of music of the time Kocha ski and Rubinstein prudently chose to settle in Bientôt la guerre éclata, laissant Szymanowski loin de que de chagrin, de malheur, de maladie et de travail’, in Germany. The following years brought periods at the United States, but Szymanowski determined to stay ses atrocités. Les séquelles d’une blessure au genou, confiait-il d’ailleurs en 1933 à Iwaszkiewicz. Aux home in the Ukraine and abroad. He wrote his in his own country and to seek there a further source of survenue en 1886, lui évitèrent en effet d’endosser ennuis d’argent s’ajoutait en effet une tuberculose qui Penthesilea, Opus 18, an orchestral work with soprano inspiration, particularly in the more primitive aspects of l’uniforme et il vécut calmement à Tymoszówka chaque jour l’affaiblissait un peu plus. La frustration de solo derived from the Achilleis of the contemporary indigenous music. His reputation grew at home and jusqu’en 1917, quand la révolution bolchévique ne pas être reconnu à sa juste valeur dans un pays auquel Polish painter and dramatist Stanisław Wyspia ski, in abroad, and in 1927 he rejected the offer of a position as l’obligea à abandonner la propriété familiale pour il se sentait viscéralement attaché – en dépit de quelques Italy in 1908, and in 1910 completed a very different director of the conservatory in Cairo in favour of the s’installer à Elisavetgrad. honneurs (ex: docteur Honoris causa de l’Université de Symphony No. 2 in B flat, Opus 19, a work in which the financially less rewarding position of director of the C’est durant la période du premier conflit mondial Cracovie en 1930) – lui pesait beaucoup également. influence of Skryabin is noticeable, as it is in the piano Warsaw Conservatory, which in 1930 became the que les impressions de voyage dont l’artiste était empli - L’abus de tabac, d’alcool, de drogue appartenait music of this period. The new symphony, played under Warsaw Academy of Music, an institution of which he ‘Chaque fois que je mettais la main sur mes souvenirs désormais à son quotidien... Fitelberg in Warsaw in 1911, proved unacceptable to remained rector until his resignation in 1932. d’Afrique ou de Sicile, l’émotion m’étouffait’, confia-t- Début 1937, Szymanowski partit se faire soigner en both audience and critics, but won acclaim in Berlin, The five years that Szymanowski spent at the il se souvenant de cette période - portèrent leurs fruits France. ‘Avant un de mes concerts, au Casino de Leipzig and Vienna, establishing the international Conservatory and the Academy brought many dans des chefs-d’œuvre tels que le Concerto pour violon Cannes’, se souvenait Arthur Rubinstein, ‘j’eus importance of the composer. Szymanowski determined, frustrations, particularly in dealing with musicians of a nº 1 (1916), la Symphonie nº 3 ‘Le Chant de la nuit’ l’occasion d’aller voir mon pauvre Karol, qui était alité after this experience, to live, at least for a time, in conservative turn of mind, and these difficulties finally (1916), les Métopes (1915) et Masques (1916) pour dans une clinique de Grasse. C’était désespérant de le Vienna, where Fitelberg was now employed at the led to his resignation. The remaining years of his life piano, les Mythes pour violon et piano (1915) ou le voir ainsi délabré. Il avait perdu sa voix, ne pouvait plus Staatsoper, and where he reached an agreement with were not easy, without any regular source of income, Muezzin passionné (1918), partition brûlante de désir. que murmurer ( ... ) “je pensais que je ne le reverrais Universal to publish his work. and he therefore made more public appearances as a La dimension érotique est très présente dans l’opéra plus jamais”, ajoute-t-il plus loin’. Vienna proved less stimulating than Szymanowski performer, writing the piano part of his Symphony No. 4 Le Roi Roger, que Szymanowski entama en 1918. Juste pressentiment. Szymanowski était installé had hoped, but the period changed to some extent his in 1932 to suit his own relatively modest piano Travail de longue haleine, l’ouvrage lyrique du maître depuis peu dans une clinique de Lausanne quand, le 29 musical outlook, particularly through his experience of technique, no longer adequate for the more taxing polonais parvint à son terme en 1924 seulement et fut mars 1937, la mort l’emporta. L’Etat polonais lui the music of Debussy and, still more, of Ravel, and of compositions of his earlier career. In the same year he représenté pour la première fois en 1926 à Varsovie. organisa des funérailles officielles et, insulte suprême, the Dyagilev company in Stravinsky’s Firebird and was greatly encouraged by the performance in Prague of Stylistiquement très homogène, il se rattache par son lors du retour de sa dépouille à Varsovie, demanda à ce Petrushka. In March 1914 he left Vienna and travelled his opera King Roger, a work that deals imaginatively langage aux partitions écrites pendant la guerre, tout en que le train fasse halte à Berlin afin que l’Allemagne south to Italy, Sicily and North Africa, returning with a struggle in medieval Sicily between Christianity se révélant aussi tributaire de l’exemple wagnérien dans nazie lui rende les honneurs militaires. through Rome, Paris and London, where he met and an Eastern Dionysian religion, a further example of sa construction. Travail de longue haleine, l’élaboration du “ballet- Stravinsky. The war years he spent in musical isolation his absorption of the essence of other cultures than his Le contraste apparaissait très prononcé avec les pantomime” Harnasie commença en 1923, au début at home at Tymoszówka, turning his attention to a study own, and of his reading of Euripides. autres œuvres que Szymanowski avait fait entendre donc de la période “folklorisante” de l’artiste, et ne of Greek civilisation and literature, to the early history Szymanowski’s final years were clouded by illness depuis 1920 environ et qui traduisaient un changement s’acheva qu’en 1931. “Vous me demandez pourquoi j’ai of Christianity and to the culture of Islam, the last an and he sought an alleviation of the effects of d’orientation radical. choisi un thème rural... C’est à cause de mon extension of an interest aroused by translations of the tuberculosis abroad in Davos, Grasse and Cannes, and Dans une Pologne libérée du joug russe, le musicien attachement profond envers les gens de la région de poems of Hafiz by Hans Bethge, poet of Mahler’s Das finally in Lausanne, where he died on 29th March 1937. découvrait les racines populaires de son art - ‘Je suis en Podhale qui est pour moi comme une seconde patrie. Lied von der Erde, some of which he had set to music in His last orchestral work was the Second Violin train de cristalliser en moi les éléments de l’héritage Certains aspects culturels du monde paysan étant 1911, and exemplified in the remarkable Symphony No. 3, Concerto, completed in 1933, followed by two tribal’, affirmait-il. Les Mazurkas op. 50 (1925), le menacés d’extinction, nous, artistes, avons le devoir de completed in 1916, using poems by the 13th century Mazurkas for piano, written in the following year. Stabat Mater (1925), les Chants Kurpiens (1929), le les préserver pour la postérité”, déclara Szymanowski Persian mystic and poet Mevlânâ Jal l ad-D n ar-Rûmi. The ballet-pantomime Harnasie, based on the story ballet-pantomime Harnasie (1931), les Litanies à la en 1935 lorsqu’on l’interrogea au sujet des motifs qui The Russian revolution put an end to of the abduction of a bride on her wedding-day by Vierge (1933) ou la Symphonie nº 4 ‘Symphonie l’avaient incité à entreprendre la composition de Szymanowski’s period of war-time seclusion. The Harnás and his robber band, the Harnasie, and on music concertante’ pour piano et orchestre (1932) l’illustrent. Harnasie. family was compelled to move, for reasons of safety, to of the mountain Tatra people, won success in Prague in Nommé directeur du Conservatoire de Varsovie en L’élaboration de cette dernière partition scénique du Elisavetgrad, and the property at Tymoszówka was 1935, and with new choreography by Serge Lifar was 1926, Szymanowski ne tirait que d’assez maigres musicien polonais avait débuté à partir d’une suggestion destroyed by the revolutionaries. In 1919 they moved to well received in Paris the following year. It was staged revenus de cette activité épuisante et sa situation de Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz et Jerzy Mieczysław Rytard - Poland, after the proclamation of the new republic. in Hamburg in 1937 with choreography by Helga matérielle demeurait très précaire. ‘Ma vie n’est faite les auteurs de l’argument -, bientôt suivie d’une
8.570723 413 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 14
commande d’Emil Mlynarski, de l’Opéra de Varsovie. Le pantomime ne lui était cependant pas un genre Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937): Harnasie (Ballet-Pantomime) Op. 55 La version définitive de l’ouvrage présente bien des inconnu quand, en 1923, il entreprit ce chef d’œuvre. Mandragora (Pantomime) Op. 43 • Prince Potemkin, Incidental Music to Act V, Op. 51 différences avec le projet initial du musicien. En 1923, Trois ans auparavant en effet, il avait signé Szymanowski s’était en effet lancé dans la composition Mandragora, une partition représentée à Varsovie le 15 Karol Szymanowski was born at Tymoszówka in the Władysław Lubomirski the Young Poland in Music d’un mariage goral (le folklore goral est celui de la juin 1920. Sur un livret de Ryszard Bolesławski et Leon Kiev District of the Ukraine in 1882, the son of a Polish group, for the publication and promotion of new Polish région des Tatras) qu’il envisageait en une seule partie. Schiller, d’après Molière, l’ouvrage était initialement land-owner and of a mother of Swedish extraction, born music. Fitelberg, by training a violinist and composer, Finalement la nécessité lui apparut d’adopter une destiné à être inséré dans le troisième acte du Bourgeois Baroness Anna Taube. The family and their immediate made his later career as a conductor, and directed the structure plus complexe : Prélude (Scène rurale) - gentilhomme. Il se présente sous la forme d’un circle had a deep interest in the arts, a fact reflected in the first concert of the group in Warsaw in 1906, when Tableau n° 1 (deux scènes mimées) - Tableau n° 2 (Le intermezzo en trois scènes, pétri de l’esprit de la subsequent careers of the five children of the marriage as Szymanowski’s Concert Overture was performed. He mariage, Chanson à boire, Entrée des Harnasie; commedia dell’arte, où l’on ne manquera pas de relever musicians, poets or painters. Karol’s sister Stanisława won later distinction as conductor at the Vienna Danse) - Epilogue (Dans les montagnes), que les l’influence de Stravinski dont le ballet Petrouchka avait, later became a singer and his brother Feliks a pianist. Staatsoper and in work for the Russian impresario spectateurs découvrirent pour la première fois à Prague on s’en souvient, conquis Szymanowski sept ans plus Szymanowski’s early education was at home, since a leg Dyagilev, before returning to direct the Warsaw le 11 mai 1935. tôt. injury at the age of four prevented him from attending Philharmonic Orchestra and, from 1947, the Polish Situé dans la région montagneuse des Tatras, school in the neighbouring town of Elisavetgrad (the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice. Kocha ski’s Harnasie conte les mésaventures d’une jeune fille Alain Cochard modern Kirowograd), where, nevertheless, he had music support was to prove invaluable, particularly in the contrainte d’épouser un fermier aussi riche et laid qui ne lessons from a relative, Gustav Neuhaus, who had a composition of the first of Szymanowski’s two violin lui plaît aucunement. Par chance, Harnás, chef des En 1925, après avoir achevé Le Roi Roger, school there. In 1901 he went to Warsaw to continue his concertos and in a number of works written for violin brigands, intervient avec ses compères, les Harnasie, et Szymanowski écrivit la musique de scène pour le musical studies, taking lessons from the composer and piano. Rubinstein, who, like Kocha ski, made his enlève la jeune fille qui s’éprend de lui et décide de cinquième acte du Prince Potemkin, une pièce de Zygmunt Noskowski in counterpoint and composition later career in the United States of America, proved an devenir sa compagne. Tadeusz Mici ski. Le poète polonais, engagé dans le and from M. Zawirski in harmony. additional champion of Szymanowski, while Si les thèmes d’origine folklorique sont mouvement “Jeune Pologne”, partageait avec The feelings of Polish nationalism that had inspired Paderewski, a musician of more conservative tendency, omniprésents dans l’Opus 35, ce dernier, parce que sa Szymanowski un goût pour l’ésotérisme et Chopin and his contemporaries continued through the assisted in the wider dissemination of Szymanowski’s composition démarra au tout début de la dernière l’orientalisme. En 1904-05 le compositeur avait mis en nineteenth century, exacerbated by the repressive piano music, favouring especially the famous B flat période du musicien, conserve certaines attaches avec le musique quatre poèmes de Mici ski, et s’inspira d’un measures taken by Russia, in particular, in the face of minor Study, a work that owes much of its popularity to style impressionniste des années précédentes. autre de ses poèmes pour l’Ouverture de Concert, open revolt. Warsaw in 1901, however, remained as his advocacy. Extrêmement fouillée et colorée, l’orchestration op. 12. La musique de Prince Potemkin, dont le provincial as it had been in the time of Chopin, who had The first Young Poland concert in Warsaw had témoigne d’une richesse qui, alliée à la rusticité des manuscrit fut trouvé à la mort de Szymanowski, éploie sought his musical fortune abroad in Paris in 1830. The included performances of Szymanowski’s Variations on motifs, parvient à un résultat éblouissant de relief et très une version dramatisée d’une mélodie populaire des century had seen Polish performers of the greatest a Polish Folk Theme and his Study in B flat minor, suggestif. Szymanowski se refusait à une “transposition Tatras. distinction, particularly the violinists Lipi ski and played by the pianist Harry Neuhaus, and had been well mécanique” des mélodies populaires. Dans Harnasie, il Wieniawski. The opera composer Stanisław Moniuszko, enough received. Berlin, however, proved much less parvient à les transcender avec une science poétique Isabelle Battioni however, a rival to Chopin in his own country, enjoyed interested, when Fitelberg conducted the Berlin rare. only a local reputation, while his successors, in Philharmonic Orchestra in a similar programme in the Szymanowski’s esteem, occupied a still lower place. same year. Szymanowski spent the following two years Polish music was to a great extent isolated and principally in Berlin and Leipzig, absorbing still further provincial, a reflection of the society in which it existed. the influence of Wagner, of Reger and of Richard The new century, however, brought together a group of Strauss, composers of whom he later took a cooler view. young musicians of much wider outlook, a circle that This period saw the composition of his Symphony No. 1 included the pianist Artur Rubinstein, the violinist in F minor, completed in 1907 and given its first Pawel Kocha ski and the conductor Grzegorz Fitelberg. performance in Warsaw two years later. The composer The last named, the composer Ludomir Ró ycki and the subsequently withdrew the symphony and went so far as pianist and composer Apolinary Szeluto, together with to destroy the 1907 piano trio, sensing what seemed to Szymanowski, established under the patronage of Prince him the excessive influence of the post-Wagnerian, a
8.570723 14 3 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 2
Karol SZYMANOWSKI Also available: (1882-1937) Harnasie, Op. 55 35:47 Text: Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) and Jerzy Mieczysław Rytard (1899-1970) Obraz I: Na hali (Tableau I: In the mountain pasture) 1 No. 1: Redyk (Driving the sheep) 5:09 2 No. 2: Scena mimiczna (zaloty) (Mimed Scene (Courtship)) 2:15 3 No. 3: Marsz zbójnicki (The Tatra Robbers’ March)* 1:43 4 No. 4: Scena mimiczna (Harna i Dziewczyna) (Mimed Scene (The Harna and the Girl))† 3:43 5 No. 5: Taniec zbójnicki – Finał (The Tatra Robbers’ Dance – Finale)† 4:42 Obraz II: W karczmie (Tableau II: In the inn) 6 No. 6a: Wesele (The Wedding) 2:36 7 No. 6b: Cepiny (Entry of the Bride) 1:56 8 No. 6c: Pie siuhajów (Drinking Song) 1:19 9 No. 7: Taniec góralski (The Tatra Highlanders’ Dance)* 4:20 0 No. 8: Napad harnasiów – Taniec (Raid of the Harnasie – Dance) 5:25 ! No. 9: Epilog (Epilogue)*† 2:39 Mandragora, Op. 43 27:04 8.557748 Text: Ryszard Bolesławski (1889-1937) and Leon Schiller (1887-1954) @ Scene 1**†† 10:38 # Scene 2†† 6:16 $ Scene 3** 10:10 % Knia Patiomkin (Prince Potemkin), Incidental Music to Act V, Op. 51*** 10:26 Text: Tadeusz Mici ski (1873-1918) Wiesław Ochman, Tenor* • Alexander Pinderak, Tenor** Ewa Marciniec, Mezzo-soprano*** 8.554315 Ewa Marczyk, Violin Solo† • Kazimierz Ko lacz, Cello solo††
8.570723 2 15 8.570723 570723 bk Szymanowski EU:570723 bk Szymanowski EU 12/15/08 5:13 PM Page 16
Karol Also available: SZYMANOWSKI Harnasie (Ballet-Pantomime) Mandragora • Prince Potemkin, Incidental Music to Act V Ochman • Pinderak • Marciniec Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir • Antoni Wit
8.557981
8.570721
8.570723 16