Violin Concerto No. 1

Szymanowski composed his First Violin Concerto for his friend and fellow Pole, the violinist Paweł Kochański. It was the summer of 1916, but the First World War was a long way from the Szymanowski family’s country estate in what is now Ukraine. Inspired by Kochański’s brilliant, fluid playing, he planned a concerto that combined the traditional three movements into one long, arch-like outpouring of the imagination, fusing lush, bejewelled orchestral writing, lyrical melody and (in the central section) flashing, darting virtuosity. The result has been described as one of the first truly modern violin concertos, though it’s equally audibly the work of an imagination that revelled in glittering and sumptuous sounds, and yearned for the deep, sensuous warmth of the Mediterranean sun. It was finally premiered in 1922, and a delighted Szymanowski regarded it (for a while) as his greatest success.