Search - Karol Szymanowski, Karol Stryja, Polish Chamber Philharmonic :: Szymanowski: Harnasie (Ballet Pantomime) Op.55/Mandragora (Patomime), Op. 43/Etude For Orchestra In B

Why Isn't This Wonderful Music Better Known?

M. C. Passarella | Lawrenceville, GA | 08/17/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As David Hurwitz says in the capsule review on this page, there is no compelling reason why Harnasie isn't heard more often in concert--or recorded more widely, for that matter. The first time I heard it, I was blown away. Here was a composer writing music that was clearly indebted to the ballets of Stravinsky, Bartok, and maybe Prokofiev, and yet Karol Szymanowski had created a work that was not merely a pale imitation but an exciting, exotic thing unto itself. With its part for chorus and tenor solo, Harnasie is unlike any of its antecedents, including "Les Noces" and "The Miraculous Mandarin," both of which use voices, of course. No, with its languid Eastern-sounding rhythms and orchestral color, Harnasie (which debuted in 1935) looks back more comfortably to Impressionism and late Romanticism than do Stravinsky or Bartok in their most modernist ballets. Based on actual folk melodies from the Tatra Mountains of southern Poland, Harnasie is a wonderful bit of latter-day musical nationalism.



Mandragora (1920)--with its lighter scoring and greater reliance on individual instruments (especially the winds) to provide color--is intriguing as well, though it is not on quite the same plane as the remarkable Harnasie. But especially if you aren't familiar with Szymanowski, you'll probably be floored as I was by the quality of invention in this music.



The Etude for Orchestra is just a makeweight, orchestrated, as it was, not by Szymanowksi himself but by Polish conductor Gzregorz Fitelberg. Still, it is a pleasant piece worth adding to your collection.



The performances are entirely idiomatic and played and sung well by the Polish State forces. The recording is a bit distant and bright--probably a function of the hall--but if you crank it, it will give very good results. All and all, this disc is a great introduction to one of the twentieth century's most undervalued composers.

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