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Karol Szymanowski
The Complete Songs for voice and piano
On
the 1st of May 2004 Poland joined the EU. Commemorating that event, this unique
box of 4 CD’s presents the complete songs by Poland's great
composer Karol Szymanowski containing a real treasure of ravishing
songs never recorded before.
In a co-production with the Dutch label Channel
Classics Records 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, are
accompanied by the Dutch pianist Reinild
Mees.
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.
The Szymanowski CD's also won the FRYDERYK
AWARD, the most prestigious music award in Poland
for the best recording of Polish music in 2004 and was very highly praised in the international press.
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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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