Listeners who have wholeheartedly embraced the fin de siècle music of Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, and French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel have never really responded to the fin de siècle music of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. Who can say why? As this disc coupling the composer's Second and Third symphonies performed by Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra proves, Szymanowski certainly wrote much first-rate music. Scored for an enormous late ...
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Listeners who have wholeheartedly embraced the fin de siècle music of Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, and French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel have never really responded to the fin de siècle music of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. Who can say why? As this disc coupling the composer's Second and Third symphonies performed by Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra proves, Szymanowski certainly wrote much first-rate music. Scored for an enormous late Romantic orchestra, the Second from 1911 is dramatic and heroic, with gorgeous melodies, brilliant colors, and powerful forms. Scored for tenor, chorus, and a huge post-Romantic orchestra, the three-movement Third from 1916 setting texts by the Sufi poet Rumi is mystical and sensual with shimmering textures, glimmering colors, and melodies so evocative you can almost taste them. Yet for all its quality, there have been precious few recordings of either work by Polish or non-Polish...
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