A new perspective on Szymanowski's life
The biography, written in Polish by Danuta Gwizdalanka, has also been published in German.
The literature on the most important Polish composer of the first third of the 20th century, Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937), is still rather scarce in book form. Now, with a new publication by Danuta Gwizdalanka, a comprehensive publication is available for the first time. It sheds new light on the biography of a musician who hid his homosexuality from his mother until the end of his life. As can be seen from his letters, published by Szymanowski specialist Teresa Chylińska, the 27-year-old composer confessed: "Mama is my first and my last love."
The modestly illustrated biography begins as intimately as it ends with "Life with the family" and detailed information about the widely ramified family. The chapter "The Narcissist and the Mimosa" reveals more unknown facts than, for example, the commentary on the 12 Etudes op. 33, with which Szymanowski revolutionized piano music. "The artist who craved homage", as the author writes, who suffered from "excessive ambition" and neurasthenia, was not only a chain smoker but also an alcoholic. In addition to very informative quotations and detailed insights into the psyche of the neurotic artist, one of the advantages of the book is the description of the inspiration the composer owed to his travels to the South, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and the Orient.
As if the EU country Poland did not belong to Europe, Szymanowski's stays appear separately in the chapters "In Europe" and "In Poland". While "The National Artist" is widely acknowledged, the posthumous reception of his work in the chapter "Afterlife" only takes up two printed pages. The author mentions "a specialized sanatorium in Lausanne" as the place of death, without specifying that it was the Clinique du Signal run by Dr. Dufour. A "Chronicle of life and work", together with a bibliography and index of persons, rounds off the publication, which suffers from many repetitions.
Contrary to what the advertising claims, this is not the "first biography of Szymanowski in German". The book was written in Polish and translated by Peter Oliver Loew, following Polish book publications by Stanisław Golachowski in Leipzig in 1982, in Krakow in 1983 and the anthology About Karol Szymanowski had been published in Warsaw in German translations.
Danuta Gwizdalanka: The Seducer. Karol Szymanowski and his music, translated from Polish by Peter Oliver Loew, 292 p., € 27.10, Harrasowitz, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 978-3-447-10888-1
