The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski studied in Warsaw and later in Berlin. His work was much influenced by Chopin, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Brahms and Reger.

He came from a wealthy cultured family and, during World War I, he lived on the family estate in the Ukraine.

After the war he became professor of composition and, later, director of the Warsaw Conservatoire.

The ballet Harnasie won some success at its first performance in Prague, followed by performance in Paris.

His purely orchestral works include two violin concertos and three other symphonies, the fourth and last in the form of a sinfonia concertante for piano and orchestra.

The last of Szymanowski's four symphonies, a Symphonie concertante with solo piano, was completed in 1932, while the Third Symphony, Song of the Night, is set to words by the mystic Mevlŕna.

Other works for voice and orchestra include settings of poems by Hafiz, "Demeter", for female chorus and orchestra, based on the Bacchae of Euripides, a Stabat Mater and a Veni Creator, settings of the traditional medieval Latin texts, and a Litany to the Virgin Mary.

His orchestral compositions also include two violin concertos.

Some of the songs that appear as works for voice and orchestra also exist in a parallel form with piano accompaniment.

His settings otherwise range from the literary to the reworking of folk-songs.

Among the best known of Szymanowski's smaller scale works is Myths, for violin and piano, three pieces, La fontaine d'Arčthuse, Narcisse and Dryades et Pan, a violin sonata, Nocturne and Tarantella and a Romance.

His two string quartets are less often performed.

Polish tradition is perpetuated in Szymanowski's twenty Mazurkas.

MIDI FILE - Polish Theme op.3 (9'53'')