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Donald Macleod considers Szymanowski's study of Polish culture in his efforts to define a national identity in his music, with works including his ballet Harnasie and Stabat Mater.

The reshaping of Europe at the end of the First World War had a defining effect on Karol Szymanowski. As Europe was being reapportioned, the comfortable world he’d known up to that point vanished for good. His family’s comfortable and cultured life disappeared, their assets wiped out by the October Revolution. From that point on, Szymanowski ceased to be a man of some privilege, able to compose in the relative seclusion of his family’s estate in what was then part of Ukraine. He needed to support himself and his mother and sisters but he found himself ill-equipped temperamentally to deal with this dramatic change in his lifestyle. He became increasingly weighed down by illness, quite probably tuberculosis. That, coupled with a chain smoking habit and struggles with alcoholism, were to take their toll. He died in poverty at the age of just 54 in 1937.

Across the week, Donald Macleod explores five distinct influences on Szymanowski’s music, starting with his formative years growing up in a family with a passion for the arts. As a young student, his studies in Warsaw led him towards the language of Richard Strauss and Max Reger, while his love of travel directed him towards impressionism, the ancient world and the Orient. Meeting Stravinsky in Paris and hearing the Ballets Russes was another turning point, as was in his later years in particular, his commitment to establishing a national musical voice for the newly formed country of Poland.

Experiencing a sense of artistic freedom in the aftermath of the First World War, Szymanowski became absorbed by writing music that reflected not only a Polishness but also a modern musical language.

Wanda, Op 46b No 5
Iwona Sobotka, soprano
Reinild Mees, piano

Whip on the horse, Op 58 No 4
Russian State Symphonic Cappella
Larissa Nikishina, soprano
Olga Loboda mezzo soprano
Valery Polyansky, conductor

String Quartet No 2 (2nd movement)
Amati Quartet

Harnasie, Op 55 (Tableau 1: In the mountain pasture)
Timothy Robinson, tenor
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Simon Rattle, conductor

Symphony No 4, Op 60, 'Sinfonie concertante' (1st movement)
Louis Lortie, piano
´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra
Edward Gardner, conductor

Stabat Mater (excerpt)
Elzbieta Szmytka, soprano
Florence Quivar, mezzo soprano
John Connell, baritone
City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus and Orchestra
Simon Rattle, conductor

Mazurka, Op 62 No 1
Martin Roscoe, piano

Producer Johannah Smith