Karol Szymanowski was born in a highly cultivated and musical family, proud of its noble Polish heritage. He went to Warsaw to study, and founded the Young Polish Composer’s Publishing Company in 1905 with young fellow musicians in order to foster communication with the European music world and to stimulate opportunities at home and abroad. The company, based in Berlin, was very active for six years. Early on he distanced himself increasingly from German Romanticism. Important influences came from Debussy, Stravinsky and Scriabin, as well as a reverence for his great Polish predecessor, Chopin. Before the outbreak of World War I Szymanowski travelled widely, spending several years in Vienna, and deriving particular inspiration from trips to Italy and North Africa. Upon his return he wrote the Three Myths for his friend and colleague violinist, Pawel Kochánski

One of Szymanowski's most famous violin works, the three-piece cycle Myths Op. 30 was written in the spring of 1915 and dedicated to Kochánski’s wife Zofia. Szymanowski in his letter to her in 1930: "...In 'Mythes' Pawełek and myself have created a new style, new expression of violin playing, a truly epoch-making thing. All approximate-in-style works by other composers - be they most brilliant ones - were written later, that is under direct influence of 'Mythes' and 'Concerto', or with Pawełek's direct contribution (Sergey Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky and others consulted Kochanski's when writing for violin)”. Written fifteen years after he had composed his Mythes, these words of Szymanowski's underline the work's importance and its unquestionable artistic and historical value. Szymanowski borrowed the titles from Greek mythology. 

The mood of the fantastic visions - the nymph Arethusa, turned into a stream, fleeing from Alpheus; of Narcissus, in love with his reflection in the pool, turned into a flower; of the dancing Dryads and Pan playing his pipes - is achieved not only with a sophisticated and extraordinarily complicated harmony but also with a plethora of means of articulation in the violin part, with numerous trills, glissandos, tremolos, and harmonics. There is the characteristic, delicate texture, made of static, yet internally shimmering and vibrant sound planes. Evocative of Impressionism, it is particularly present in The Spring of Arethusa. All the composing techniques serve to produce new qualities of color, with powerful expression existing side by side with beautiful, lyrical melody.

© Jonathan Blumhofer