Search results

1

Język muzyczny Eugeniusza Morawskiego na przykładzie baletów Miłość i Świtezianka1

100%

Łapeta O.

Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ

|

2019

|

issue 1(40)

27-73

EN

Two of Morawski’s preserved complete ballet scores – Miłość (Love) and Świtezianka (The Maid of Lake Świteź), are representing a relatively late stage of his career as a composer, especially compared to his preserved symphonic poems (Don Quichotte, Nevermore and Ulalume). Miłość was written between 1925 and 1928. Libretto was written by the painter, theatre critic and scenic designer Franciszek Siedlecki. It is Morawski’s longest preserved composition – its estimated duration is about 3 hours. It is a score for a large orchestra supported by organ and choir. The work is divided according to the 19th-century ballet-divertissement. It is set in four parts, representing different locations (the world of machines, thesphere of the planets, the world of eternal love and Earth), and each part is divided into scenes and further dance numbers. Miłość was never presented on stage, but some portions of the work were shown at concerts. Świtezianka was written ca 1922. It is a much shorter work – its duration is about 35 minutes. Libretto was written by the composer himself. The plot of the ballet is a love triangle between a girl, a lumberjack and a knight. It is to represent a fantastic vision of pagan Slavic world in which reality and supernatural are mixed together. Świtezianka was staged in 1931 in Warsaw and was the biggest success in Morawski’s career, bringing him the State Prize for Musical Achievements in 1933. Since then it was staged three times – in 1960, 1962 and 2017, each time bringing reviews full of admiration and respect. Both ballets show Morawski as a composer fully aware of the 20th-century trends and techniques. His musical language in these works resembles Bartók, Ravel, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. They are masterly orchestrated with acute sense of orchestral timbre and with extensive use of percussion and brass sections. Morawski uses polytonality and polymetrics, underlines sharp rhythms and uses scales unfamiliar to traditional tonal system – pentatonic scale, whole tone scale and modal scale. These traits show Morawski as one of the most interesting and unjustly neglected Polish composers of the first half of the 20th century.

2

Twórczość Eugeniusza Morawskiego w oczach krytyków i kompozytorów

75%

Łapeta O.

Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ

|

2015

|

issue 1(24)

4-23

EN

The aim of this study is to present and synthesize the image of Eugeniusz Morawski’s output as presented by the Polish press and Polish composers. Morawski is an unknown composer, absent from the concert programs. His works were performed during composer’s lifetime and caused mixed and extreme reactions from the critics. His first successful concert – performance of now lost symphony-poem Vae victis in Salle Gaveau, Paris, was barely noted in Polish press. The first performance of symphonic poem Don Quichotte in 1912 caused vivid, yet mixed reactions. An important review was written by Aleksander Poliński, who criticized Morawski for being stylistically dependent on Richard Strauss’s style. Other reviews, some of them anonymous, were positive. The composer was praised for his talent and he was predicted to become a huge success in the future. Later on, his works were infrequently performed. In 1925, the symphonic poem Nevermore was performed in Warsaw under direction of Grzegorz Fitelberg. The work was very well received by the critic Karol Stromenger. Yet Morawski’s greatest success was his ballet The maid of Świteź, presented in Warsaw’s Great Theatre in May 1931. In 1933 Morawski received for this work the musical prize from the Ministry of Religious Beliefs and Publick Enlightment, winning the competition with Karol Szymanowski’s Symphony no.4. The event was discussed in great detail by the press. Some of the reviewers praised this work as Morawski’s masterpiece, others criticized it as worthless and clumsily written. The ballet was presented again in 1962 under the direction of Bohdan Wodiczko. A critic and a composer Stefan Kisielewski praised the word for its great orchestral effects and eerie climate. The article also uses extracts of letters of a composer Szymon Laks, essays of Stefan Kisielewski, and unpublished material from Polish Composers Union archive – letters of Grażyna Bacewicz and Włodzimierz Sokorski.

3

Zjawisko muzycznych idées fixes w twórczości kompozytorskiej Eugeniusza Morawskiego: w poszukiwaniu genezy i interpretacji

71%

Łapeta O.

Muzyka

|

2019

|

vol. 64

|

issue 3

69-89

EN

The article deals with compositions by Eugeniusz Morawski in which the composer uses one of his constantly recurring ideas, or idées fixes. The first of those ideas appears in a letter sent to his closest friend, the Lithuanian painter and composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, in which Morawski describes a funeral march with the tolling of bells that are used harmonically as a plagal cadence in first inversion with the third of the triad in the bass. This bell motif was used by Morawski in almost all of his most important works, such as the symphonic poems based on verse by Edgar Allan Poe, Nevermore and Ulalume, the two ballets Świtezianka (‘The nymph of Lake Świteź’) and Miłość (‘Love’) and the incidental music to Juliusz Słowacki’s play Lilla Weneda. In all these works, this motif occurs at moments symbolising death and oppression. Sometimes it is even more sinister, because Morawski used it as an accompaniment to themes symbolising hope. The second idée fixe might be called the theme of a woman’s death. It first appears in Nevermore, where it serves as a second theme, played by cor anglais in E minor. It illustrates the protagonist’s deceased beloved, Lenore. This theme appears for a second time at the very beginning of The Nymph of Lake Świteź, where it functions as a kind of motto, anticipating the death of the main female character, Sagna. It is used with an identical purpose in the incidental music for Lilla Weneda. Both themes recur constantly in five important compositions by Morawski, written between around 1911 and 1930. They seem to have had very significant meaning for the composer, although he never wrote about them. They may have represented autobiographical, intimate and obsessive symbols, so the term idée fixe is more than appropriate.

PL

Przedmiotem refleksji w niniejszym studium są dwie myśli muzyczne, obsesyjnie powracające w wielu dziełach Eugeniusza Morawskiego, będące wręcz emblematem jego stylu kompozytorskiego. Pierwszą z nich jest motyw dzwonów (poematy symgoniczne oparte na utworach Edgara Allana Poego, Nevermore i Ulalume, balety Świtezianka i Miłość, muzyka do sztuki Juliusza Słowackiego Lilla Weneda), drugą zaś – temat kojarzony w dziełach programowych kompozytora ze śmiercią kobiety (Nevermore i Świtezianka). Obie myśli powracają stale w poematach symfonicznych, baletach i muzyce scenicznej Morawskiego, uzasadniając tym samym określenie ich mianem idée fixe.

Refine search results

2 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ

1 Muzyka

3 Łapeta O.

2 2019

1 2015

Język muzyczny Eugeniusza Morawskiego na przykładzie baletów Miłość i Świtezianka1

Twórczość Eugeniusza Morawskiego w oczach krytyków i kompozytorów

Zjawisko muzycznych idées fixes w twórczości kompozytorskiej Eugeniusza Morawskiego: w poszukiwaniu genezy i interpretacji