This latest release
in the Naxos Szymanowski series covers the composer’s
music for the theatre. It focuses on his ‘ballet-pantomime’
Harnasie,
coupled with two lesser known works: the short ‘pantomime’
Mandragora,
and incidental music for Act V of
Prince Potemkin,
a play by the poet Tadeusz Miciński.
The
Harnasie represented here packs a bold
punch, with the Warsaw Philharmonic and conductor Antoni
Wit faithfully tracing the work back to its roots in the
folk sounds and dance rhythms of the Tatra mountains. The
playing throughout has an intense, even threatening, muscularity
which is well placed in this tale of peasant robbers and
bridal kidnap. The brass section in particular plays with
a sense of strident menace, while the woodwind excel in
the archly seductive passages, which so clearly link this
ballet with the lush, exotic sound world of Szymanowski’s
opera
King Roger, completed a few years earlier.
The best example of this comes towards the end of the first
tableau, with the
Tatra Robbers’ Dance (track 5),
leading to the rousing wedding scene at the start of the
second tableau (track 6), where the Warsaw Philharmonic
Choir make a forceful entry alongside shimmering percussive
effects. Also worthy of note is the beautiful, yearning
tenor solo in the final epilogue, accompanied by solo violin.
The effect, however, would be all the more satisfying
if sung texts were provided with the sleeve-notes. These,
the notes explain, are absent due to ‘copyright reasons’,
despite being included for Simon Rattle’s 2006 EMI recording
of
Harnasie with the City of Birmingham Symphony
Orchestra and Chorus. The Naxos recording also lacks some
clarity. The intricate details of the score are sometimes
lost, and the deep orchestral sonorities, so key to Szymanowski’s
exoticism, are rather dulled. Certainly this is a less
technically polished version than Rattle’s – both in terms
of its recording technology and standards of playing. But
it is a gutsier, more virile reading, and in that sense
closer to the ballet’s folk origins.
The middle piece in the recording,
Mandragora,
is a slight, divertimento-style work. Composed as an interlude
for Molière’s
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, it shows
the influence of Stravinsky. Persistent, alternating rhythms
and driving percussion (including piano) are reminiscent
of
Petrushka, while the inclusion of a florid, Italianate
tenor solo and light dance movements recall
Pulcinella.
Unfortunately, the omission of texts or even a synopsis
of
Mandragora’s three scenes does nothing to enhance
our understanding or appreciation of this minor work.
The final, shortest, piece in the recording is
a revelation. The ten-minute incidental music to a play
based on the life of
Prince Potemkin is much closer
to the sound world of
King Roger. Again, the absence
of a full explanation of the music’s role in the play in
the sleeve-notes fails to place it in context. However,
the piece can be listened to on its own as a short, intense
tone poem. Brooding strings and plaintive woodwind invoke
a dark, threatening mood, while distant trumpet-calls hint
at a military theme. A hypnotic chorus and mezzo solo further
deepen the rich tonalities of the piece, but without texts
or a synopsis, the listener is left a little too mystified.
John-Pierre Joyce
Reviews of other Szymanowski releases on Naxos
8.557981 Violin
concertos
8.570721 Symphonies 2 & 3
8.570724 Stabat
mater
Wieslaw Ochman (tenor);
Alexander Pinderak (tenor); Ewa Marciniec (mezzo) 
