Szymanowski (1882-1937)

[Christopher]

Szymanowski has been mentioned a lot in a thread going on atm on Maliszewski.   I have always ignored Szymanowski as he is labelled as a modernist, and the few pieces I've heard I haven't liked even slightly.

Given his dates, though, are there any of his works (maybe early ones, as with Stravinsky) that fall within the style and tastes of this forum?  If not, please forgive the distraction and delete this thread!

[der79sebas]

Szymanowski's "Concert Overture" op. 12 is the best Richard Strauss plagiarization I know (i.e. even better than Elgar's "In the South").

[Gareth Vaughan]

The 1st symphony is in a similar vein. And if you like Scriabin you will probably enjoy the 3rd Symphony - "Song of the Night".

[Alan Howe]

The point here is that, like many composers whose compositions date from the first 20-30 years of the 20th century, his music spans a number of broad styles. The first is Reger/Strauss, the second is exoticism/impressionism and the third is folk-inspired and more dissonant. Broadly speaking his first two periods would seem acceptable for discussion here.

Just one caveat, though: Szymanowski is no longer an unsung composer, so the choice of works for discussion here is limited.

[eschiss1]

To be fair, we did recently(ish...) have a lengthy thread on Ralph Vaughan Williams, who by Google standards is 4 times as sung, but point taken.

[Alan Howe]

...although we decided that there are places - mainland Europe? - where RVW is hardly known at all.

[Christopher]

Back to Szymanowski, as they say...   (totally unsung for me at any rate - will explore the suggestions above, many thanks)

[Alan Howe]

Just a quick point, if I may: a composer with whom one is unfamiliar doesn't necessarily mean that (s)he's unsung.