Description
DUX Recording Producers: Karol Szymanowski — Works for Violin and Piano (Audio CD)
Brand new! Factory packaged! As pictured! Buy with confidence!
Product Details:
- Product Type: Audio CD
- Brand / Label: DUX Recording Producers
- Composer: Karol Szymanowski
- Performers: Piotr Pławner (violin), Waldemar Malicki (piano)
- Catalog Number: DUX 0287
- UPC: 5902547002873
- Release Year: 1997
- Genre: Classical
- Style: Chamber music, violin and piano
Product Features
- Format: CD
- Discs: 1
- Total runtime: 67:48
- Recording: DDD (digital recording)
- Booklet: English text with German text supplement (mit deutscher Textbeilage)
- Manufactured by TAKT, Poland
- Condition: Factory Sealed (New)
Overview
This is the complete violin-and-piano output of Karol Szymanowski gathered on a single disc — the early Sonata in D minor, the standalone Romance and Nocturne and Tarantella, the famous Mythes, and the late Lullaby. It traces the composer's whole arc, from his Brahmsian beginnings to the shimmering, impressionist-tinged language that made him Poland's most important composer after Chopin.
The centerpiece is Mythes, Op. 30 — "The Fountain of Arethusa," "Narcissus," and "Dryads and Pan." Written in 1915 with violinist Paweł Kochański, these three poems rewrote what the violin could do: harmonics, quarter-tones, glissandi and trills used not as tricks but as color. "The Fountain of Arethusa" in particular is one of the most recorded short pieces in the modern violin repertoire.
Piotr Pławner, a Wieniawski Competition laureate, plays with the kind of tonal control these works demand, and Waldemar Malicki is a full partner rather than an accompanist. The DUX engineering captures the detail without gloss — the digital recording lets the highest violin writing stay clean. A focused, idiomatic survey for anyone who wants Szymanowski's violin music in one place.
Interesting Facts
- Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937) is regarded as the most significant Polish composer between Chopin and the postwar generation, and served as director of the Warsaw Conservatory.
- Mythes, Op. 30 was composed in 1915 in close collaboration with violinist Paweł Kochański, who devised many of the novel bowing and fingering effects.
- "The Fountain of Arethusa" (Źródło Aretuzy) has become a recital and encore staple, frequently recorded apart from its two companion poems.
- The Sonata, Op. 9 (1904) dates from Szymanowski's early period, still rooted in the German Romantic tradition of Brahms and Reger.
- The closing Kołysanka (Lullaby), Op. 52, subtitled La Berceuse d'Aïtacho Enia, comes from the composer's final creative period.
- The recording was produced with financial support from the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art.
Track Listing
Sonata, Op. 9
- I. Allegro moderato. Patetico — 10:01
- II. Andantino tranquillo e dolce — 6:40
- III. Finale. Allegro molto, quasi presto — 5:12
- Romance, Op. 23 — 7:45
- Nocturne, Op. 28 — 5:53 (attacca)
- Tarantella — 5:04
Mythes (Three Poems), Op. 30
- Źródło Aretuzy (The Fountain of Arethusa) — 5:44
- Narcyz (Narcissus) — 8:13
- Driady i Pan (Dryads and Pan) — 7:55
- Kołysanka, Op. 52 (La Berceuse d'Aïtacho Enia) — 4:38
Publishers
Released in 1997 by DUX Recording Producers, Warsaw, Poland. Manufactured by TAKT, Poland. Recorded with support from the Ministry of Culture and Art.
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