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Karol Szymanowski
The Complete Songs for voice and piano
 On
the 1st of May 2004 Poland joined the EU. On this occasion
we thought it would be time to bring out Polands great
composer Karol Szymanowski’s Complete
Songs. Never recorded before, this unique
box of 4 CD’s contains a real treasure of ravishing
songs.
In a co-production with the Dutch label Channel
Classics Records we have engaged three of
the best Polish singers of our time, tenor Piotr
Beczala, mezzo soprano Urszula
Kryger and soprano
Iwona Sobotka, joined by Juliana
Gondek, American soprano of Polish descent.
Accompanied by the Dutch pianist Reinild
Mees, they will convince the listener of
the high quality of this rarely heard song repertoire.
In 2004 Reinild Mees won the Szymanowski - Award
and the Medal 'Merit of Polish Culture' for her achievements
in promoting the song repertoire of Karol Szymanowski.
Recently the Szymanowski CD's won the FRYDERYK
AWARD, the most prestigious music award in Poland
for the best recording of Polish music in 2004.
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Szymanowski (1882-1937), as many composers
of his generation, was an ‘eclectic’ composer,
which meant he let himself inspire by several cultural
influences to write in many different styles. Traditional
romantic songs on classical Polish poems by Kazimierz
Przerwa-Tetmajer and Jan Kasprowicz alternate with subtle
impressionistic cycles on oriental themes ( The Songs
of the Infatuated Muezzin, Songs of the Fairy-Tale Princess,
The Love Songs of Hafiz), and passionate expressionistic
German songs with witty nationalistic folksongs. Next
to Polish poems Szymanowski used English texts by James
Joyce and German texts by the great Viennese ‘Jugendstil’
poets, as well as paraphrases of Arab texts and translations
of poems by the famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore.
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