Karol Szymanowski’s Masques is a three-part cycle referring to famous literary characters: the indefatigable storyteller Scheherazade (from One Thousand and One Nights), Tristan, in the disguise of a grotesque wanderer, unrecognised by Isolde (from Ernst Hardt’s drama Tantris der Narr, which was popular before the First World War), and the all-time seducer Don Juan. The piece attracts attention with its strong expression, pulsating with irregular tensions, its harmony that goes beyond traditional tonality and a specific tone colour associated with a massive sound and a dense, multi-layered texture. Szymanowski had planned an orchestral transcription of Masques, but he did not manage to realise this intention. This was done by Jan Krenz – the orchestral version of the cycle presented today was first performed at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 1988 by the Polish Radio and Television Grand Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jan Krenz.

Olgierd Pisarenko

Richard Strauss’ Burleske in D minor for piano and orchestra was originally titled Scherzo in D minor and dedicated to Hans von Bülow. However, Bülow found the work ridiculous and the piano part impossible to perform, causing the score to gather dust in a drawer for several years. The work was first performed in 1890 by Eugen d’Albert, to whom it was eventually dedicated, and it was also then that the piece was given the title that is still used today. This highly spectacular piece has many of the qualities of Strauss’ fantastic orchestral craftsmanship, and includes stylizations of the Viennese waltz, as well as motifs from Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre, treated as a parody. Although the composer himself had an ambivalent attitude to his work, Burleske was on the programme for his important visit to London in 1947.

Grzegorz Michalski

 

After the disappointment over his First Piano Concerto (1859), poorly received by the audience and critics alike, Johannes Brahms did not give the world another work with large orchestra for almost two decades. Although he began sketching the first of his four symphonies in 1855, its final version was not completed until 21 years later, in 1876! It was received with enthusiasm, and many critics compared it to the works of Ludwig van Beethoven, emphatically dubbing it ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’ – much to the irritation of Brahms, who while he did adore the last of the Classics and felt himself to be his spiritual heir, certainly did not regard himself as an epigone. Despite its outwardly Classical traits, the C minor Symphony is suffused with highly Romantic expression. Particularly striking is the introduction, with its regular heartbeat of the timpani. The exalted, hymnic character of the theme of the finale appears to refer to the ‘Ode to Joy’ from Beethoven’s Ninth.

Piotr Maculewicz