Karol Szymanowski

Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937) was a composer, pianist, publicist and educationalist. Szymanowski’s first creative phase, which drew on German post-romanticism and eastern aesthetics, eventually convinced him that a Polish composer had to preserve both his exceptionality and his Europeanness if he were to create a Polish national musical idiom. In this he was the successor to Chopin. Szymanowski wrote piano pieces, chamber music, songs, string quartets, symphonies, violin concertos, the ballet Harnasie and the opera Król Roger [King Roger]. Many of these works and masterpieces were groundbreaking and of great importance to Polish music.