Joanna Kurkowicz
The Boston Philharmonic’s February program has special meaning for Concertmistress Joanna Kurkowicz--as a Polish musician, Szymanowski’s Second Violin Concerto speaks to her on a deeply personal level as it represents an important contribution to the repertoire of her culture. Read on for Joanna’s reflections on what makes this concerto a masterpiece and how it fits within the world of Polish music.
I come from Poland and so naturally I am a strong advocate of Polish music. Performing or recording music by Polish composers gives me a chance to be in touch with my heritage. There are many internationally recognized great Polish composers of our times: Karol Szymanowski, Witold Lutoslawski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Grazyna Bacewicz, Mikolaj Gorecki, Zdzislaw Panufnik. In particular, I have a special affinity with the music of Grazyna Bacewicz. I have recorded several of her works and am currently finishing a recording of her violin concertos. These fabulous works for violin belong among the masterpieces of the violin repertoire and should be known worldwide, and yet, they are virtually unknown outside of Poland. Bringing her music to wider audiences has been my motivation for conducting these projects.
Each of the Polish composers has a very unique language, yet they all have something in common—they use Polish folk music in their compositions. Their lyricism and melodic identity are precious to me, an American artist born in Poland longing for familiar musical syntax. Karol Szymanowski masterfully introduced folk music of the Tatra Mountains region of Poland in his work. He had a beautiful mansion called Atma high in the hills where he spent a lot of time composing and enjoying the company of his friends, artists, musicians and poets. It was there that he composed his Second Violin Concerto. With substantial help from Paul Kochanski, the violinist for whom the piece was written, he created a true masterpiece. The strong identity of Szymanowski's music is apparent in his particular harmonies—the use of paralell fifths descending or ascending, purity of lines in octaves, and then, in contrast, quite dissonant intervals, moving voices against open strings, trills in double stops, glissandi and harmonics. With it come an outburst of neoromanticism, thick orchestral textures, powerful climaxes—real displays of color in instrumentation.
Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto belongs to the standard repertoire for violin. It is performed frequently in Poland but has only recently begun to be played more abroad. The piece has many technical challenges. The first is a clear intonation of the very sophisticated double stops with fifths and octaves, often in glissando motion. Clarity of the trills and double trills as well as harmonics is another challenge. Last but not least, a quite long cadenza in the middle of the piece is truly a "tour de force" and it showcases all the challenges mentioned above. Also, in order to capture the spirit of the concerto right at the beginning of the piece—something what I would describe as "the mountain call"—the soloist has to almost remove the sweetness of sound and vibrato. The violinist needs to convey a purity of the mountain air in the solo lines—sometimes it should feel cold or even harsh, like unpredictable weather that might change dramatically at any moment.
The Second Violin Concerto by Karol Szymanowski has many dark moments and it will therefore be a beautiful contrast to the lightness of the music by Vaughan Williams in our February concert. I look forward to playing this piece with the BPO and discovering it with Ben.
Written by Pamela Feo