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Donald Macleod charts Szymanowski's struggles to complete his only opera, King Roger - a philosophical and psychological masterpiece - as the Great War changed Europe's destiny and his life irrevocably.

The reshaping of Europe at the end of the First World War had a defining effect on Karol Szymanowski. As Europe was being repartitioned, 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.

Unfit for military service due to a childhood injury, Szymanowski spent the war years in seclusion at his family's homes, surrounded by books and his music, living in a world where culture could still reign supreme.

Study in B flat minor, Op 4 No 3
Cédric Tibérghien, piano

Penthesilea, Op 18
Iwona Hossa, soprano
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
Antoni Witt, conductor

Thème varié 'Caprice No 24' (Three Paganini Caprices, Op 40)
Thomas Zehetmair, violin
Silke Avenhaus, piano

King Roger, Act 1 (excerpt)
Robert Gierlach, bass, Archbishop
Jadwiga Rappé, contralto, Deaconess
Thomas Hampson, baritone, Roger
Philip Langridge, tenor, Edrisi
Elzbieta Szmytka, soprano, Roxana
City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, Youth Chorus and Symphony Orchestra
Simon Rattle, conductor

King Roger Act 2 (excerpt)
Thomas Hampson, baritone, Roger
Philip Langridge, tenor, Edrisi
Elzbieta Szmytka, soprano Roxana
Ryszard Minkiweicz, tenor, Shepherd
City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, Youth Chorus and Symphony Orchestra
Simon Rattle, conductor

Mazurkas, Op 50 Nos 1, 3, 6
Artur Rubinstein, piano