''Mythes'', Op. 30 is a suite for

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

and

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

written by

Karol Szymanowski Karol Maciej Szymanowski (; 3 October 188229 March 1937) was a Polish composer and pianist. He was a member of the modernism (music), modernist Young Poland movement that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th century. Szymanowski's early w ...

in 1915 and premiered one year later by

Paul Kochanski Paul Kochanski (born Paweł Kochański; 30 August 1887 – 12 January 1934) was a Polish violinist, composer and arranger active in the United States. Training and early career Paweł Kochański was born in Odesa to Polish-Jewish parents ...

on violin and the composer on piano. It is dedicated to Kochanski's wife, Zofia Kochańska. Similarly to ''

Métopes ''Métopes'', Op. 29, is a work for piano solo by the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski, completed in 1915. It is a suite of three miniature tone poems drawing on Greek mythology. Each of the three movements features a female character encounter ...

'' composed around the same time, ''Mythes'' consists of three programmatic miniature tone poems drawing on

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

. The piece was heavily inspired by the composer's earlier travels in Sicily and North Africa and by

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

music. The work is considered an important milestone in 20th-century violin writing and was heavily admired by Szymanowski's contemporaries, such as

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...

and

Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''. , group=n ( – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who l ...

. It features heavy use of advanced violin techniques, and the third movement famously contains

quarter tones A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval (music), interval about half as wide (orally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which itself is half a major second, whole tone. Quarter tones divide t ...

. A performance usually lasts about twenty minutes.

Structure

The piece has three movements, each depicting a scene from Greek mythology: *''La fontaine d'Arethuse'' ( The Fountain of Arethusa) *''Narcisse'' (

Narcissus Narcissus may refer to: Biology * ''Narcissus'' (plant), a genus containing daffodils and others People * Narcissus (mythology), Greek mythological character * Narcissus (wrestler) (2nd century), assassin of the Roman emperor Commodus * Tiberius ...

) *''Dryades et Pan'' (

Dryads A dryad (; , sing. ) is an oak tree nymph or oak tree spirit in Greek mythology; ''Drys'' (δρῦς) means "tree", and more specifically " oak" in Greek. Today the term is often used to refer to tree nymphs in general. Types Daphnaie Thes ...

and Pan)

References

External links

*
Rice University: ''Karol Szymanowski's Musical Language in "Myths" for violin and piano, op. 30'' by Hyojin Ahn, thesis submission, May 2008
Compositions by Karol Szymanowski Suites (music) 1915 compositions Music dedicated to family or friends Compositions for violin and piano {{Classical-composition-stub