Grzegorz Fitelberg - Symphony No. 1 in E-Minor Op. 16 (Borowicz)

Описание: Grzegorz Fitelberg - Pierwsza symfonia e-moll
1904

Conductor: Łukasz Borowicz
Orchestra: Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra

0:00 - I. Andante - Allegro agitato
8:45 - II. Andante
17:33 - III. Scherzo: Presto
22:00 - IV. Finale: Allegro agitato

Grzegorz Fitelberg (1879-1953) was born into a Polish-Jewish family in Latvia, but soon after his birth, his family relocated to Warsaw. From 1891--1896, the young Fitelberg would study violin with Stanisław Barcewicz and composition with Zygmunt Noskowski.

Fitelberg jump-started his musical career very early on. In 1896, at around age 17, he became a violinist at the Warsaw Philharmonic, and he spent his youthful years composing. Most of his youthful works were violin-oriented, and they were very successful. For example, Fitelberg's first violin sonata won an award at the Paderewski competition in Leipzig in 1898 when the composer was only 19 years old. However, when Fitelberg's conducting career took off, his career as a composer took a back seat. By 1914, he had completed the vast majority of his entire output [1].

Fitelberg would enjoy an active conducting career that would take him across Europe, South America, and North America. He conducted Strauss, Borodin and other works popular in the repertoire at the time, but he made friends with Szymanowski and helped found the "Publishing Company of Young Polish Composers" (Spółka Nakładowa Młodych Kompozytorów Polskich). His membership in the initiative would encourage him to perform his own works along with the works of Szeluto, Szymanowski, Karłowicz, and Różycki.

At the outbreak of WW2, Fitelberg fled Warsaw, reaching Paris and eventually finding his way to North America, where he gave fewer concerts than usual, occupying himself with other musical enterprises. He returned to Poland where he taught at the Warsaw Conservatory and later at what is now the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice. Given the ease of life in the US compared to Stalinist Poland, the decision to return teases out some of Fitelberg's most fundamental attachments and values. It was a combination of a dissatisfaction of musical life in America, suspicion from fellow Jews (Fitelberg had converted to Catholicism), and a dedication to Polish culture that drove him back [1]. He died only a few years after his return.

Of Fitelberg, Witold Lutosławski wrote: "Without exaggeration, one could ascertain that Fitelberg had his own colossal part to play in the Polish musical output at that time. One must realize that it is only thanks to Fitelberg that Polish music is coming to be known around the world" [From culture.pl].

Grzegorz Fitelberg's first symphony is a colorful, melodic product of its time. Harmonically, the symphony does not stray from the language of Strauss and Karłowicz. Structurally, the work retains a more traditional four-movement form that follows the "Per Aspera Ad Astra" tradition exemplified by Beethoven's 5th Symphony [2]. Putting away technical language, the symphony rushes along as moments of intense energy burst before elegant, ethereal atmospheres interrupt with reverential beauty. In an era that was struggling to break free of the decades-long ideological tug-of-war between programmatic music that was full of chromatic, dissonant effects and formal experimentation and formal architectural poems rich with abstract beauty and well-defined contrasting boundaries, a symphony like this joins the early Strauss symphonies by straddling the line between the camps.

General biographical info comes from Wikipedia and Culture.pl

[1] M.Trochimczyk. Review of: Correspondence of Grzegorz Fitelberg from the Years 1941-1953 by L. Markiewicz, A. Labus, S. Polek. The Polish Review, Vol. 50, No. 2 (2005), pp. 232-237
[2] K. Stefan. "The Tradition of ‘per aspera ad astra’ in Polish Symphonic Music from Zygmunt Noskowski to Karol Szymanowski." Muzyka 54, Nr. 3-4, p. 21-44. 2009.