Violin Concerto No.1, Op.35

In all the violin works Szymanowski wrote, he incorporated the strong influence of the performance art of Paweł Kochański, one of the most prominent violinists in the first decades of the 20th century. After their first encounter in 1903, he composed the Sonata in D minor, Op. 9 (the composer's first published work). Twelve years later, in close collaboration with Kochański, he composed his finest works for violin, the Myths, Nocturne and Tarantella (in 1915) and the Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 35 (in 1916). At the height of the First World War, the two spent a lot of time together in Tymoszówka or at their friend Józef Jaroszyński's neighbouring estate in Zarudze. Szymanowski recounts the collaborative working process: Kochański's inexhaustible inventiveness and resourcefulness suddenly opened up new horizons and unlimited possibilities for me. He came up with unexpected solutions that avoided both clichés and unwarranted eccentricity. The score pages were covered with his additions and alternatives, which always improved my ideas... In the Myths and the Concerto, Pavel and I created a new style, a new form of expression in violin playing, something truly epochal. All such violin works - be they the most brilliant - were written later, i.e. under the direct influence of Myths and the Concerto or with the direct participation of Pawelek. Not surprisingly, historians describe Szymanowski's Violin Concerto, Op. 35 as "the first modern concerto". The composer's intoxication with the newly discovered sonic and technical 'resources' of the instrument poured out in a new form. The concerto is a single movement, the violin is a powerful soloist's voice in the lush orchestral fabric. This voice sculpts incredible, as if improvisatory monologues - of mysterious magic, nocturnal impressionistic scents and bird trills, longing and pain, flights of ecstasy, sublime tenderness and erotic sensuality... The concerto begins with a clinking rustling, as if an illusory dream that opens the space of a fantasy world. The soloistic sound meanderings intertwine masterfully with the colouristic orchestra to create different states of imagery. Several climactic waves lead to the virtuoso-tingling solo cadenza (it was written by the composer's advisor and "accomplice" Paweł Kochanski), which is followed by a final explosion. After this, the concerto ends quietly and mysteriously like a magical vision. As an early critic observed: 'The work is very freely written, extremely varied, full of unpredictable combinations, rich and vivid... One could say that the landscape changes every moment, as in a movie'. Many scholars point to Tadeusz Miciński's poem May Night as the inspiration for the work, which begins thus: Crowned donkeys sat on the grass – crickets kiss a wild rose – and death shimmers on the pond and plays a frolicking song. Mayflies, Follow the dance – oh, lake flowers, water nymphs! Pan plays the flute in the oak grove. (translated from Polish by Dosia McKay) Szymanowski's music may be an ideal companion to poetic expression, but it neither follows nor "duplicates" Miciński's symbolistic-bucolic verse. The Violin Concerto Op. 35 was premiered in Warsaw on 1 December 1922. The soloist was Józef Ozimiński, at that time concertmaster of the Warsaw Philharmonic, and the conductor was Emil Młynarski. Paweł Kochański, to whom the composer dedicated his Violin Concerto No. 1, managed to perform it with great success two years later, in 1924 in New York under the baton of Leopold Stokowski. Gaining worldwide fame rapidly, this extremely difficult concerto is still performed with pieties by all great violinists.