City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Leif Ove Andsnes as the pianist.
I - Moderato (Tempo commodo) - Subito più mosso, animato - Poco più tranquillo - Poco più mosso - Andantino tranquillo e dolce - Subito più vivo - Quasi Tempo I (Molto moderato) - Subito più mosso - [Cadenza] - Allegramente animato - A tempo (molto animato): 0:00
II - Andante molto sostenuto - Doppio movimento (Tempo moderato) - [Cadenza] - (attacca): 9:44
III - Allegro non troppo, ma agitato ed ansioso - Meno mosso. Moderato, molto tranquillo - A tempo animato - Avvivando 17:58
Szymanowski's Symphony No.4 was composed between March and June 1932, shortly after resigning his post as rector of the Warsaw Academy of Music and becoming once again a freelance musician. It was premiered on October 9 of 1932, performed by the Poznań City Orchestra conducted by Grzegorz Fitelberg, with the composer himself as the pianist. It was a great success, the finale being encored. The piece is dedicated to Polish virtuoso pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who would perform and record it.
The piece is a curious blend of the genres of symphony and concerto; symphonic in its scope and style but with a prominent piano part that doesn't reach the levels of technical virtuosity one would expect from a concerto. Szymanowski would use the symphony as a concert vehicle for his own many tours, which occupied him until his untimely death from laryngeal cancer in 1937. The piece's more neoclassical spirit, incarnated by a more restrained harmonic language, smaller orchestra and the use of traditional forms, doesn't detract at all from Szymanowski's colourful and vivid orchestral writing.
The first movement is structured in sonata form. It begins with repeated F major pizzicato chords, over which the soloist presents a beguiling main theme in double octaves. Its origins in the exuberant folk idioms of the Tatra Mountains, where Szymanowski had a home, soon become apparent in the woodwind polyphony. It is contrasted by a bustling and percussive second theme in narrow intervals, ending in a violent outburst of force. The ensuing development section is rhythmic in nature, reaching a powerful and soaring climax. At the recapitulation, the pianist and orchestra switch roles, the romantic main theme now being taken by high-register violins accompanied by the piano. An elaborate cadenza for the piano brings the movement to brilliant coda.
The second movement is divided in three parts. It begins with the soloist playing gently dissonant passage of ostinati as background figuration for a lyrical main theme on the flute, later taken up by solo violin. The alternating notes of a minor third (initially C-A on the timpani) underpin the drive to the full-blooded central climax, where what had seemed so innocent on the flute at the start becomes impassioned in a way that would not have been out of place in the Straussian works of Szymanowski’s earlier work. The flute returns, this time with the main theme of the first movement. A piano cadenza, based loosely on this theme, takes place interspersed with luxurious figurations recalling birdsong. It directly leads us into the finale.
The third movement is written as a rondo. It begins with an animated and vivid main theme, based on a fast triple-meter Polish dance known as an oberek (a fast cousin of the mazurka), which is introduced by the lower registers of the keyboard before exploding in full orchestra. A lively second theme also appears of Bartókian character in its sense of motoric drive and percussive rhythms. The timpani returns to their minor third, now A-C, propelling the music to its first climax. Soloist and orchestra whirl and stamp, before a solo violin leads to the calmer central section, with a slower, dance-like third theme in tempo of the slower mazurka. But the undercurrent of energy cannot be contained, a music Szymanowski described it as "almost orgiastic in places". After a brief but varied recapitulation of the themes, the work comes to an end in a final bacchanal worthy of "Daphnis et Chloé" or "La Valse".
Picture: "The Young Girls" (1930) by the Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka.
Sources: [ Ссылка ] and [ Ссылка ]
To check the score: [ Ссылка ]
