Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	1	2	3	4	5

Dennis Lee - Karol Szymanowski: Etudes, Fantasy, Metopes, Masque (2001)

Posted By: Designol

Date: 20 May 2025 08:36:48

Dennis Lee - Karol Szymanowski: Etudes, Fantasy, Metopes, Masque (2001)

Perhaps Szymanowski’s music is too cool and sophisticated ever to become popular. Even the third of his Op. 4 Studies, which Paderewski made famous, is less full-bodied than Scriabin’s early C sharp minor Étude, and while Scriabin believed in the madness of his later music, Szymanowski’s apparent abandon in his voluptuous period around the First World War is crafted with detachment. Dennis Lee clarifies the cascades of notes – or rather sonorities – in the two major sets, Métopes and Masques, so that these complex pieces are understood more easily than usual. The recorded sound is a bit thin and small, but clean.

Review by Adrian Jack, BBC Music Magazine

Possibly the only piece here that will be known to most music-lovers will be the third of the Op. 4 Studies, which in Paderewski's advocacy won a certain fame for the young composer early in the century. Its beautiful, doleful melody still has an appeal; but this is not really the best of the set, nor a work that most fully represents Szymanowski's subtle gift for construction and his harmonic enterprise. The listener who knew nothing might well deduce the composer from the others, and from the Metopes: something so clearly pitched between Chopin and Scriabin suggests a Pole, and the swarms of notes, the lush yet delicate figuration of the kind that Debussy learnt from Liszt, place the music in the earliest years of the century. Szymanowski is the only possible answer, and for
those who are drawn to this world, the present record will afford delight as well as discovery.

The Liszt influence is comparatively direct in the Fantasy, a dazzling piece of work (which Dennis Lee handles brilliantly), but a less satisfying one than the Metopes. As visitors to the Elgin Marbles will know, metopes are the square spaces in a Greek frieze; and Szymanowski uses the idea to suggest images of the Sirens, of Calypso and her enchantment of Odysseus, and of Nausicaa and her maidens finding the exhausted, salt-caked Odysseus shipwrecked upon their shore. The first two are largely decorative and evocative, with many an ingenious touch (Jim Samson, author of The Music of Szymanowski—London; 1980—and of the insert-notes, neatly suggests that the birdcalls remind us that the sirens were half-woman, half-bird); the third is a dance, again with touches of Debussy in its fantasy.

The Masques make even more fearsome demands on the performer, without appearing to trouble Lee. They take as their subjects Scheherazade, Tristan and Don Juan, but avoid any temptation to musical quotation; and though Christopher Palmer has observed, in his BBC Music Guide Szymanowski (London: 1983), that there are orchestral suggestions in the writing, he also quotes Messiaen as remarking that there is ''an orchestral kind of piano writing which is more orchestral than the orchestra itself''. Lee appreciates this with great intelligence, as well as virtuosity, and does most handsomely with a composer who makes a wide range of demands upon the performer.'

Review by John Warrack, Gramophone

Karol Szymanowski at Allmusic
Karol Szymanowski at Wiki

Recorded: November 1990
St Barnabas's Church, North Finchley, London, UK

Tracklist:

Four Studies, Op.4
01. No.1 in E flat minor (03:36)
02. No.2 in G flat major (01:45)
03. No.3 in B flat minor (04:27)
04. No.4 in C major (03:40)

Métopes, Op.29
05. I. Isle of Sirens (05:45)
06. II. Calypso (05:01)
07. III. Nausicaa (04:34)

Fantasy, Op.14
08. Grave - (03:37)
09. Non troppo allegro, ma molto passionato e affettuoso - (04:52)
10. Allegro molto, deciso, energico (04:38)

Masques, Op.34
11. I. Scheherazade (09:42)
12. II. Tantris the Clown (05:42)
13. III. Don Juan's Serenade (06:26)

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V1.1 from 23. June 2015

EAC extraction logfile from 30. October 2016, 20:02

Dennis Lee / Szymanowski - Piano Music

Used drive : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GU70N Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
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Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
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Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" %source%

TOC of the extracted CD

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Range status and errors

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Filename C:\temp\CDH55081 - Szymanowski - Piano Music - Dennis Lee\Szymanowski - Piano Music.wav

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Test CRC A09824A0
Copy CRC A09824A0
Copy OK

No errors occurred

AccurateRip summary

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No tracks could be verified as accurate
You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database

End of status report

==== Log checksum FBD47816F020C933DADF8DEBDC95CBEBBD9BE9D79085AC7817BD167A49571092 ====

DR log

foobar2000 1.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2016-11-15 16:46:27

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Dennis Lee / Szymanowski - Piano Music
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR13 -6.24 dB -24.57 dB 3:36 01-Four Studies, Op.4 - No.1 in E flat minor
DR11 -7.65 dB -23.12 dB 1:46 02-Four Studies, Op.4 - No.2 in G flat major
DR13 -5.99 dB -25.68 dB 4:27 03-Four Studies, Op.4 - No.3 in B flat minor
DR13 -6.20 dB -24.99 dB 3:41 04-Four Studies, Op.4 - No.4 in C major
DR13 -5.88 dB -25.02 dB 5:46 05-Metopes, Op.29 - I. Isle of Sirens
DR14 -5.52 dB -25.79 dB 5:02 06-Metopes, Op.29 - II. Calypso
DR15 -2.66 dB -24.51 dB 4:34 07-Metopes, Op.29 - III. Nausicaa
DR14 -3.70 dB -22.52 dB 3:38 08-Fantasy, Op.14 - Grave -
DR13 -4.81 dB -24.65 dB 4:52 09-Fantasy, Op.14 - Non troppo allegro, ma molto passionato e affettuoso -
DR13 -3.56 dB -20.84 dB 4:38 10-Fantasy, Op.14 - Allegro molto, deciso, energico
DR15 -3.10 dB -24.55 dB 9:42 11-Masques, Op.34 - I. Scheherazade
DR14 -3.50 dB -23.86 dB 5:43 12-Masques, Op.34 - II. Tantris the Clown
DR14 -3.64 dB -23.33 dB 6:27 13-Masques, Op.34 - III. Don Juan's Serenade
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 13
Official DR value: DR13

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 433 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================

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