Karol Szymanowski (1882 - 1937)

Piano Music
Mazurkas, Op. 50, Nos. 1- 4
Metopes, Op. 29
Etudes, Op. 4, Nos. 1- 4
Sonata No.2, Op. 21

Karol Szymanowski was born at Tymoszówka in the Kiev District of the Ukraine in 1882, the son of a Polish land-owner and of a mother of Swedish extraction, born Baroness Anna Taube. The family and their immediate circle had a deep interest in the arts, a fact reflected in the subsequent careers of the five children of the marriage as musicians, poets or painters. His sister Stanislava later became a singer and his brother Feliks a pianist. Szymanowski's early education was at home, since a leg injury at the age of four prevented him from attending school in the neighbouring town of Elisavetgrad (the modern Kirovograd), where, nevertheless, he had music lessons from a relative, Gustav Neuhaus, who had a school there. In 1901 he went to Warsaw to continue his musical studies, taking lessons fro