COMPOSERS: Szymanowski
LABELS: EMI
ALBUM TITLE: Szymanowski
WORKS: Love Songs of Hafiz; Songs of a Fairyale Princess; Harnasie
PERFORMER: Iwona Sobotka (soprano), Katarina Karnéus (mezzo-soprano), Timothy Robinson (tenor); City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus & Orchestra/Simon Rattle
CATALOGUE NO: 364 4352
A belated addition to Simon Rattle’s
Szymanowski series for EMI, this
hugely welcome recording – made
on one of the conductor’s return
visits to the CBSO – focuses on
Szymanowski’s late, neglected
masterpiece, the ballet Harnasie.
Completed in 1931 and
sometimes described as the ‘Polish
Rite of Spring’, Harnasie is rooted
in the folk mythology of Poland’s
Tatra mountains. It tells the story of
a Robin Hood-like character who
raids a mountain village to rescue an
unhappy bride from her wedding,
but the score is never folksy. One
reason for the work’s relative
obscurity is that its impractical
demands – in addition to large
orchestra it calls for tenor soloist and
chorus – and it also needs performers
positively soaked in the idiom. As
Szymanowski’s most persuasive
non-Polish champion, Rattle
draws an intoxicating and punchy
performance that could hardly be
bettered. Still, Kazimierz Kord’s
recording with Polish forces on CD
Accord still has the slight edge, for
it more distinctly breathes the highmountain
air.
Szymanowski usually resisted
the notion of nationalism in music,
and Harnasie was his most decisive
step away from the orientalism
he had earlier embraced. That
side of his musical personality
is richly represented in the sets
of songs that frame the ballet.
In 1933 he orchestrated three of
his earlier (1915) six Songs of a
Fairytale Princess, and it is these
that are sung here in glistening tone
by the soprano Iwona Sobotka.
The orchestral writing is no less colourful in his second cycle of Love
Songs of Haifiz, which find Katarina
Karnéus in vibrant voice. For
performances and repertory alike,
this is an unmissable recording.