SZYMANOWSKI ON MUSIC: SELECTED WRITINGS OF KAROL SZYMANOWSKI by Karol Szymanowski
Edited and translated by Alistair Wightman

Szymanowski on Music is the first comprehensive selection of his writings to be published in English. It contains all the most important of the composer’s essays and interviews, throws light on the trying conditions under which he was obliged to work in the 1920s and ’30s, especially in education, and gives perceptive assessments of the work of some of the major composers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – Wagner, Strauss, Stravinsky, Ravel, Satie and others – and the trends they embodied.

A number of pieces of a more biographical nature are included, not least Szymanowski’s touching obituary for his life-long friend, the violinist Paweł Kochański, and Michał Koromanski’s intriguing, but none-too-flattering, report of a meeting with Szymanowski towards the end of his career.

The translations are preceded by an extensive introductory essay placing Szymanowski’s literary activities in the context of his life and career.

Szymanowski on Music will be a vital element in the rediscovery of the music of one of the twentieth century’s most appealing composers.

Hardcover: 395 pages
Publisher: Toccata Press (1 Jan 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0907689388
ISBN-13: 978-0907689386