16th November 2006 Polish Parliament has announced year 2007 as a year of Karol Szymanowski

KAROL SZYMANOWSKI - composer, born on 3 October 1882 in Tymoszowka, died on 29 March 1937 in Lausanne.

Karol Szymanowski spent his childhood in Tymoszowka, Ukraine. He started to learn to play the piano in 1889, his father being his first teacher. Then he learned from Gustaw Neuhaus in the Elizawetgrad School of Music, and later became a student of Marek Zawirski (harmony) and Zygmunt Noskowski (counterpoint and composition) in Warsaw in 1901-05. At that time Szymanowski met Pawel Kochanski, Artur Rubinstein, Grzegorz Fitelberg, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz "Witkacy" and Stefan Zeromski. In 1905, accompanied by Witkacy, he travelled to Italy for the first time. In the same year he set up a Company of Young Polish Composers together with Grzegorz Fitelberg, Ludomir Rozycki and Apolinary Szeluto. Operating under the patronage of Wladyslaw Lubomirski, the Company promoted works by contemporary Polish composers. Soon it became known as the "Young Poland" and its members had concerts of their compositions arranged in Warsaw and Berlin in 1906. In 1906-07 Szymanowski made several trips to Berlin and Leipzig, and in 1908 travelled again to Italy. Having settled down in Vienna in 1912, he established contact with Universal-Edition and signed a ten-year contract. In 1914 Szymanowski made another trip to Italy and Sicily, to South Africa, Paris and London, and in 1915-16 he travelled to Kiev, Moscow and St Petersburg.

The October Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 forced Szymanowski to leave Tymoszowka. He was never to return there. The composer moved to Elizawetgrad to settle down in Warsaw in 1919. In 1921 he travelled to the United States with Pawel Kochanski and Artur Rubinstein. May 1922 saw a tremendously successful concert of his compositions in Paris. In August of the same year he came to Zakopane for the first time since the end of World War I, and made it his regular destination. Szymanowski's artistic interests started to veer more and more towards Polish folk music, especially that of Podhale and Kurpie regions. Refusing to accept the position of Director of the Cairo Conservatory in 1926, Szymanowski was appointed Master of the Warsaw Conservatory, a post he held from 22 February 1927 to 31 August 1929. In 1929 he went for a treatment to a sanatorium in Edlach, Austria, and then to Davos, Switzerland. He was the Master of the Higher School of Music in Warsaw (now the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music) from 1 September 1930 to 30 April 1932. Since 1930 he settled down in Zakopane, in the Villa Atma. Concerts of his own compositions took him to France in 1933-36. 1935 was marked by the only meeting of Szymanowski and Witold Lutoslawski, Poland's other greatest twentieth century composer. In November 1935 Szymanowski left the Atma for ever. Throughout 1937 he stayed a few times at a sanatorium in Grasse, France. In March 1937 he arrived at a sanatorium in Lausanne, where he died.

Among Szymanowski's better known orchestral works are four symphonies (No. 3, Song of the Night with choir and vocal soloists and No. 4, Symphonie Concertante, with solo piano) and two violin concertos. His stage works include the ballet Harnasie and the operas Hagith and Król Roger. He wrote much piano music, including the four Etudes, Op. 4 (of which No. 3 may be his single most popular piece), many mazurkas and his Métopes. Other works include the Three Myths for violin and piano, a number of songs (some on texts by James Joyce) and his Stabat Mater.

Please, see the composer’s full profile and an extended list of his compositions on:
www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_szymanowski_karol