Karlowicz: Complete Symphonic Poems

CD1 [61.57] Returning Waves (1904) [25.15] Eternal Songs (1907) [25.44] A Sorrowful Tale - Preludes to Eternity (1908) [10.57] CD2 [68.29] Lithuanian Rhapsody (1906) [20.17] Stanislav and Anna Oswieczin (1912) [22.33] Episode during a Masquerade (1908-9) [25.37]

Original Issue on the Chant du monde label through Harmonia Mundi. No longer in print
Had Szymanowski died at the age of 32 would we think of him as anything more than a talented disciple of Richard Strauss? In 1909 Mieczyslaw Karlowicz, Szymanowski's compatriot and ten years his senior, met his death at just that age—in an avalanche whilst climbing in his beloved Tatra mountains. We are left with the evidence of a considerable talent which may well have been on the verge of great things. The evidence is contained primarily in the six symphonic poems on these two discs, all composed between 1904 and 1909 (the last opus being posthumously completed, by Grzegorz Fitelberg). They show a composer much given to melancholic and pantheistic soul-states, besotted with the language of post-Wagnerian late romanticism and occasionally striking gold amid its common coinage. Karlowicz's predilections are apparent from the titles—Stanislaw and Anna aiwigcimowie is a story of doomed incestuous love, and it is indicative that An Episode during a Masquerade proves to be a very unfestive affair. A euphonious, passionately striving language is well adapted to such subject matter; it also says a lot about the trends against which more 'progressive' composers reacted so violently—chromatic tapestries stretched over rather obvious harmonic frameworks, seductive orchestrations heavily indebted to Wagner and Strauss. But if Karlowicz's music is to be enjoyed for its own sake—if as strong a case is to be made for him as I would be happy to make for (certain works of) Humperdinck, Zemlinsky, Stenhammar or Suk, for example—then its moments of individuality are crucial. And here there is a problem. For one thing the Silesian Philharmonic orchestra and the 1981 Polish recording both have their limitations—they are not so drastic as to repel the sympathetic listener, but they do deprive the music of some of its essential sumptuousness. For another thing, most of us know how doubts about the strength of a musical personality can sometimes be swept away after more prolonged acquaintance. Anyway, let me single out one thrilling moment at 20'40" in Eternal Songs, where a theme based on a rising overtone series (presumably the "Song of Universal Being") suddenly materializes over a rushing Brucknerian background; and there are certainly delights in store some 14 minutes into the Lithuanian Rhapsody (whose subsequent preference for wistfulness over rumbustiousness is also impressive). If I say that much of the rest seems overly predictable, evocative of a cobwebby atmosphere that was overdue for sweeping-out, and that Karlowicz's resources seem particularly limited whenever his ideas touch the hem of a Strauss, an Elgar, or a Delius, these should be taken as provisional reactions. I hope any readers who have already formed a deeper attachment to this music will take up their pens and hasten to contradict me. D.J.F. - Gramophone