Mity

Europe was in turmoil when Karol Szymanowski created his Mity (Mythes), for violin and piano (1915). Rather than reflect grim reality, the hypersensitive composer found strength by retreating into musical dream-worlds of which Mythes is one of the most captivating and impressive. Somewhere between a violin sonata and a set of stunningly imaginative sound-pictures, Mythes treats the two instruments as equal partners, the piano very much co-creator when it comes to the silk-like liquid textures of “La Fontaine d’Arethuse” (“The Fountain of Arethusa”), the melancholic half-lilting, half-fainting dance figures of “Narcisse” and the evocations of the magical piping of the god Pan in “Dryades et Pan”. Echoes of Ravel, Scriabin and the Stravinsky of Petrushka can be made out, if the listener wishes, but they’re so thoroughly digested that it all feels utterly personal. No wonder this piece was such an influence on such important later Polish composers as Witold Lutosławski and Grażyna Bacewicz: it’s the kind of music that opens doors on new worlds.