3a) Characteristics of the style and pieces
As discussed in the previous chapter, the last of Szymanowski's three compositional periods is called the Nationalistic or Folkloristic period. The first time Szymanowski came into contact with the folk music of Zakopane and its neighbourhood quite superficially and perhaps even only accidentally was already before the first world war (in 1905 and 1914). However, his contact and reference was very indirect. We can notice it in his piece Piano Variations op.10 composed in 1910 on a supposedly highland theme, but taken from Jan Kleczyński1 publication (no.19) giving this theme in a form changed beyond recognition. The melody was even unjustifiably called a Sabała tune. When Szymanowski heard the Highland original years later, he could hardly recognise its relationship to the melody notated by Kleczyński.2 Piano variations are definitely keeping with the 19th century aesthetics of salon music, however, the folkloric originals have been "tweaked" and smoothed over here, so that their original features have been completely obliterated.3
In the 1920s, which mark the beginning of Szymanowski's third period as a composer, he consciously enters the folkloristic and nationalistic period; this time with greater fidelity to folk music sources. He interweaves quotations from original folk songs, which he transforms and combines with his own melodic ideas. He connects the simple melodies with the harmony and style of 20th century music.
He particularly valued the originality and raw beauty of Polish folk music in its rhythm, tonal qualities and tonal properties and specific performance manners. Therefore, he tried to preserve, emphasise and develop it, enriching it with his own melodic and harmonic ideas. In practice, this often meant a simplification of the work's structure, a predominance of harmonic thinking, a break with chromaticism in favour of diatonic and modalism, and clarity of the work's form. Works written in the third - "national" - period of Szymanowski's creative output testify to the composer's interest in the issues of national style - particularly important in the period after Poland regained its independence.4
What we can notice very often in the third compositional period of Szymanowski, is the use of goral scale (C, D, E, F#, G, A, B♭) in the pieces. We can very clearly see it, even in the beginning of Harnasie. (click for an example) His work also features pentatonics and their various transformations.
The first piece written with conscious use of Podhale folklore is a cycle of 5 songs Słopiewnie on poems by Julian Tuwim composed for his sister Stanisława Korwin- Szymanowska in the summer of 1921. The music turns towards the pre-Slavic culture, which in Szymanowski's opinion was personified by the folklore of Podhale. The artist was fascinated by its modality, simplicity, vital energy, but also lyrical expression.“These elements were reflected in Słopiewnie which are ideally combined with Tuwim's poetry - extremely graceful, full of sonorous neologisms, the sound of which suggestively resembles Polish speech, as well as with his own, individual compositional style.”5 These songs don’t have any direct folkloristic citations. However, even without them Szymanowski managed to evoke some of the special characteristics of Podhale style. He achieves this by using simplified motives, eliminating harsh sounds and sticking to simple, melodious phrases (music example on the right). Only in one of the songs, the third one entitled Święty Franciszek (St Francis) one can hear a Sabała tune.(3:38 on the video on the right) It is the same tune that the composer used years later in the ballet Harnasie. 6( click for the examples) In the fourth movement of the piece Kalinowe Dwory (5:30 on the video) Szymanowski presents a very characteristic goral rhythmic movement, a dotted rhythm consisting of a long note slurred to the eight note and followed by sixteenth notes. The last two bars of the piece, in which the soprano sings a high b flat note with the text “Hey” refer to the shout that is characteristic of highland music and usually occurs at the beginning of a melody. (example 3)
After writing Słopiewnie, Szymanowski became increasingly drawn to the music of Podhale, and so already in 1921 he had the first idea of writing a ballet with a Highlander theme which would eventually become Harnasie. Ten years passed between the first drafts and the completion of the work, below I focus on what Szymanowski composed in the intervening years.7
In this project, the main aim is to become better acquainted with his works featuring the violin, however, I must take the liberty of briefly analysing and describing a very special work by Szymanowski, which are 20 mazurkas op.50 for piano.
This set of mazurkas was composed in 1924-1925 and it is a conscious combination of Chopin's mazurka form with Podhale melodies and modern harmonic language. They are not a copy of the style of the 19th century composer, but a new and fresh approach to it. What we notice are sharp syncopations, staccato, aggressive consonances, as well as the presence of modal scales such as the goral scale.8 In the very first mazurka no.1 the beginning presents a slightly modified Sabała tune and a goral scale starting from note “E” with augmented fourth (A#) and minored seventh (D). The upbeat is also very characteristic of folk music, in which the melodic line often starts before the bases. Mazurka no.1 is full of open fifths and fourths in the chords. The right hand has an improvisation-like line which reminds one of the folk bands where the violinist makes a free improvisation on the tune- in this case a Sabała tune. (example 5)
“Twenty mazurkas op.50 constitutes a veritable treasury of musical ideas and compositional techniques: various kinds of piano texture, harmonic formulae, as well as a multitude of moods - from "oberek" vitality through dramatic expression to subtle, thoughtful, "kujawiak" lyricism. The mazurkas no. 1, 3, 13 and 15 delight with their beautiful cantilena, while no. 6 and 14 with their ribald humour and no. 2, 16, 18 and 20 with their highland temperament.”9 (click for the examples)
In 1927 Karol Szymanowski was still busy working on the ballet Harnasie.
However, he managed to compose a piece which is one of his major works of the period, the Second String Quartet, written in the autumn in characteristically trying circumstances:
It is just as if someone terribly in love had at last got their beloved in the room and at the moment they were getting down to serious matters, some-one burst into the room. It is not so cynical a comparison as it would appear. First I speak of real love and secondly, in any creative work there is much erotic spirit. So imagine it: while I am literally stealing time for composition, just as I am writing down some bar or other with pasion, a lad from the Conservatory bursts in with papers to sign, the next moment I am called to the Department, then there are the pupils with idiotic compositions into which I really must stuff my own creative energies!...How I brought this quartet to an end I really have no idea!10
The Second String Quartet op. 56 was composed for a chamber music competition organised by Musical Fund Society in Philadelphia. It was dedicated to Dr. Olgierd and Julia Sokołowski. The first performance by the Warsaw String Quartet was in May 1929 in the concert hall of the Warsaw Conservatory. This quartet is considered to be one of the most demanding works written by the composer both technically and musically. It has three movements: Moderato, Vivace scherzando and Lento, and each of them is very different. It seems as if Szymanowski here attempts to put all of his various styles and ideas together.11
That first movement of the quartet is somehow very lyrical, however with many complex chords. After the very soft and slow ending of the first movement which closes with G Major chord we enter a completely different world. Vivace scherzando starts very strongly with a harsh sound, after a few bars the first folk theme appears (7:30 on the video on the right - example 6). This time the melody is taken from Harnasie. Tableau I Marsz zbójnicki (Robbers March) - Hej! Idem w las. This is followed by a passage from the beginning of the song Pocies chłopcy, pocies zbijać also taken from the ballet (8:03 on the video on the right). The last movement of the String Quartet - Lento, starts with a fugue whose theme is an exact copy of what Szymanowski wrote in the violin part of Taniec zbójnicki (Robbers dance) in the Harnasie ballet (11:40 on the video on the right), however its movement and atmosphere are totally different.(click for comparison videos) Firstly, the part in the ballet is very lively and energetic, while in the Quartet it is the slowest movement of them all - Lento. Apart from that, dynamically, the quartet starts pianissimo while the ballet is kept in loud dynamics. (examples 7, 8 and 9)12
Interestingly most of the folk quotations in the quartet are actually taken from vocal parts of the ballet. Moreover, each time the melody appears for the first time it is mostly played by the first or second violin. That is linked to the theory I develop that Szymanowski was inspired by the connection he perceived between the voice and the violin as discussed in a later chapter, the Approaching Harnasie and other violin pieces by Szymanowski.
The Violin Concerto op.61 no.2 was one of the last major pieces written by Szymanowski. It represents the apotheosis of his 'late' style. As he wrote in a letter to Jan Smeterlin about Kochański’s influence on this piece “[Kochański] squeezed out of me, as out of a dessicated tube of toothpaste, believe it or not - a new violin concerto!!”13
The Second violin concerto was written in 1932-1933 and it differs in almost all respects from the 1st violin concerto. Szymanowski abandoned complex harmony and chromaticism in favour of diatonic and modal clarity.14 The second violin concerto has only one movement consisting of two separate sections separated by a violin cadenza (written by Kochański).
Kochański supported and aided Szymanowski, in numerous ways. The literature suggests that the composer would always ask him advice and tips while writing violin pieces. For the Second violin concerto, Szymanowski requested that Kochański prepare the violin part - bowings, fingering and other idications.15 The piece was first performed with Kochański as a soloist on 6 October 1933 at the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall with conductor Grzegorz Fitelberg. It was the last performance of the violinist (he died a few months later). Szymanowski, deeply moved by the death of his friend, when handing in the score of the work for publication, included a dedication: "A la mémoire du Grand Musicien, mon cher et inoubliable Ami, Paul Kochański" [In memory of the Great Musician, my dear and unforgettable Friend, Paweł Kochański].16
This piece differs from his other folkloristic works. Even though it sounds very much in the style of Highlander's music, it does not have direct quotes of melodies. The first part of the concerto - Moderato Tranquillo is based on the Goral scale with augmented fourths and flattened sevenths. Next to that we can notice in the background fifths and tritons which are also folk influences.17 According to musicologist Alistair Wightman the second part of the concerto after the cadenza “seems to be a stylization of the fast highland march”.18
The concerto can be interpreted as a gradual retreat from direct dependence on folk music. As conductor Piotr Deptuch writes in his article :
Concerto 2 is actually Szymanowski's unintentional farewell to life, perceived in all its sensuous beauty. The personification of this life may be the silvery, high-pitched melody of the violin. The music is not tragic and one does not feel the premonition of death in it, but after all, as Christopher Palmer claims, it is ecstasy and not agony (as in the case of Mahler) that creates Szymanowski's sound world - a world in which even the farewell takes place in the rhythm of a Dionysian dance, accompanied by Bartek Obrochta's* highlander band.19
Example 8. a) Harnasie. Tableau II, Raid of the Harnasie. Dance. bars 64-65; b) II String Quartet, mov. 2, bars 44-45
From Szymanowski a muzyka Podhala - Ludwig Bielawski, pp. 20
Example 1. K. Szymanowski - Piano variations op. 10
Example 9. a) Harnasie. Tableau I. Robbers dance. bars 34-38; b) II String Quartet, mov. 3, bars 1-3
From Szymanowski a muzyka Podhala - Ludwig Bielawski, pp. 21
Example 7. a) Harnasie Tableau I, Robbers March bars 5-7; b) II String Quartet mov. 2, bars 12-15
From Szymanowski a muzyka Podhala - Ludwig Bielawski, pp. 20
Example 6. K. Szymanowski - Second String Quartet op.56
Example 2. K. Szymanowski - Słopiewnie
Example 4. Mazurka no.1 op.50
Example 3. The last two bars of Kalinowe Dwory "Hey"
Example 10. K. Szymanowski - II Violin Concerto op.61