''Métopes'', Op. 29, is a work for

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 ...

solo by the Polish composer

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 ...

, completed in 1915. It is a suite of three miniature

tone poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement (music), movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. T ...

s 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 ...

. Each of the three

movements Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger c ...

features a female character encountered by

Odysseus In Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, Odysseus ( ; , ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( , ; ), is a legendary Greeks, Greek king of Homeric Ithaca, Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, epic poem, the ''Odyssey''. Od ...

on his homeward voyage. The movements are: * "The Isle of the Sirens" * "Calypso" * "Nausicaa" The work may have been inspired by the metopes of the temple at

Selinunte Selinunte ( , ; ; ; ) was a rich and extensive Ancient Greece, ancient Greek city of Magna Graecia on the south-western coast of Sicily in Italy. It was situated between the valleys of the Cottone and Modione rivers. It now lies in the of C ...

. The composition is the first of four piano works composed by Szymanowski during the First World War, an intensely productive period for the composer. In style it resembles

impressionism 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 ...

and bitonal works by

Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

and

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

References

* Didier van Moere, CD booklet insert: Szymanowki Sonata no 3, Masques, Métopes, performed by Piotr Anderszewski, 2005 * Malcolm MacDonald, CD booklet insert: Szymanowski piano works and works for violin and piano, various performers, EMI classics 2005

External links

*
Lecture-recital by Mikoklaj Warszynski
who has recorded the work on this album which appears on Spotif

Compositions for solo piano Compositions by Karol Szymanowski 1915 compositions Suites (music) {{Classical-composition-stub