Karol Szymanowski
(b. Tymoszówka, Ukraine, 6 October 1882; d. Lausanne, 29 March 1937)

Nocturne and Tarantella, op. 28 (1915)
Arranged for orchestra by Grzegorz Fitelberg (1939)

Preface

The outbreak of World War I found Karol Szymanowski in his native Ukraine, far away from the centers of music that had inspired him in the past: Paris, Vienna, and London, all of which were now in "enemy territory." Cut off from active music life and prevented by a childhood injury to his knee from being called up for war duty, he embarked on what was to be the most prolific period of his career. For lack of a better term, the years from 1914 to 1918 are called his "impressionist period" to set them off from the Germanic works that preceded them and the more abstract nationalist music that was to follow. One of the earmarks of this period was a new-found interest in the violin.
The source of this interest was Pawel Kocha?ski (1887-1934), a leading virtuoso violinist of the early 20th century and later professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and Juilliard. In 1915 Kocha?ski worked closely with Szymanowski while living at Zarudzie, a rural estate near the composer's birthplace. The immediate results of their close companionship were the First Violin Concerto (1915), for which Kocha?ski supplied the cadenza, and two remarkable works for violin and piano: the Nocturne and Tarantella (op. 28) and Myths (op. 30).
Although written almost simultaneously, these two pieces are worlds apart in mood. Something of the lighthearted flavor of op. 28 is evident in the story of its genesis, as told by Szymanowski's biographer Maciejewski:
"In Zarudzie, Szymanowski met August Iwa?ski, the son of a well-to-do landowner... The trusting host Jaroszynski had to leave his distinguished guests: Szymanowski, Kocha?ski and Iwa?ski alone for several hours. In searching for something to do, Iwa?ski came across a few bottles of old Cognac. In the tipsy mood which ensued, Szymanowski jotted down on a bit of paper his merry and carefree Tarantella Op. 28 for violin and piano. Almost needless to say, the work was dedicated to Iwa?ski - the "Cognac finder"! It was recorded by Yehudi Menuhin (1937), Nathan Milstein (1937), Ida Maendel (1949) and other distinguished violinists."
The Tarantella, a later reminiscence from the composer's Italian journeys of 1911 and 1914, was supplied a few months later with a prefatory Nocturne and published by Universal in Vienna as op. 28 in 1921. The date of its première is unknown, although Kocha?ski and the great pianist and teacher Heinrich Neuhaus are known to have played the piece often in public in 1917-18. In 1939, two years after Szymanowski's death, it was orchestrated by his friend Grzegorz Fitelberg (1879-1953), one of the great Polish conductors of the century. Fitelberg had conducted the premières of many Szymanowski works and is known to have given the composer practical advice on orchestration early in his career. This was only one of many Szymanowski works that he arranged for orchestra, a monument to a countryman and age-mate whose stature in the history of music, though long eclipsed by his eastern European contemporaries Stravinsky and Bartók, is now well-nigh unassailable.

Bradford Robinson, 2005

Performance material: Universal Edition, Vienna