AGATA SZYMCZEWSKA
ROBERT KOWALSKI
VOLODIA MYKYTKA
KAROL MARIANOWSKI
"This Warsaw foursome has superb technical control, innate musicality and an extraordinary sense of ensemble. Couple that with a deep understanding of their repertoire and an involvement that communicates itself electrifyingly to an audience, and the Karol Szymanowski Quartet bears the hallmark of greatness.” (Paul Cutts in „The Strad”)
The Karol Szymanowski Quartet’s 30th anniversary year is a year of renewal:
with Agata Szymczewska, Robert Kowalski, Volodia Mykytka and Karol Marianowski,
the ensemble presents itself to the music world in a different line-up and,
by returning to its original name, also forges a link to its roots.
Ever since its founding in Warsaw in 1995, the Karol Szymanowski
Quartet has been characterised by a constant search for new inspiration
and an openness to the unpredictable; and great musicians have
contributed their voices to the sound of the renowned ensemble. To this
day, its members are united by an extraordinary common understanding
of music, a shared basic inspiration grounded in a commitment to Polish
music and the Polish composer, Karol Szymanowski. His music, with its
immense freedom and infinite possibilities of expression, still exercises a
strong power of identification on the ensemble even after 25 years. For
the musicians with their Polish and Ukrainian roots, it represents both an
intense preoccupation with their origins and identities and a clear
commitment to crossing borders; concerns that constitute the basis of the
quartet’s extraordinary career.
The Karol Szymanowski Quartet began its chamber music education at the
Hanover University of Music and Performing Arts with Hatto Beyerle, who
recognized and encouraged the professional standard of the ensemble’s
playing at an early stage. Eberhard Feltz, Walter Levin, Alfred Brendel,
Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Greenhouse, Friedemann Weigle, as well as members of
the Amadeus, Emerson, Juilliard and Guarneri Quartets were other important mentors.
A master class with Isaac Stern in New York, which, after many weeks of
intensive work, led to concerts at Carnegie Hall, was particularly formative
for the quartet’s further development. Numerous prizes and awards followed,
for example at competitions in Weimar, Hannover, Melbourne, Osaka and Florence.
Beginning in 2001, the quartet benefitted from a three year membership of the BBC’s
“New Generation Artists Scheme“
The Karol Szymanowski Quartet has received great recognition for its
exploration of Alban Berg’s music and for the first performance of works
dedicated to the quartet. But it was above all as ambassadors of
Szymanowski’s string quartets and the music of Polish and Eastern
European composers, including Witold Lutosławski, Sofia Gubaidulina,
Mieczysław Weinberg and Krzysztof Penderecki - with whom the quartet
had a close working relationship - that enabled it to enter the top rank of
the international music scene over the next few years; a commitment that
was honoured in 2005 with the renowned “Szymanowski Prize“ and in
2007 with the Polish Medal of Honour. This engagement with their musical
roots took on a special character in 2008 with the founding of the “Lviv
Chamber Music Festival“, a chamber music festival on the border between
Ukraine and Poland. On the initiative of the Karol Szymanowski Quartet,
Lviv, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, became for seven years a musical
and cultural meeting place for numerous artists and ensembles, including
Gidon Kremer, Khatia Buniatishvili, Nicolas Altstaedt and Oleg Maisenberg,
who were invited to take part in cultural exchanges and joint concerts.
The Karol Szymanowski Quartet is primarily concerned with the search for
connection and exchange beyond epochs and national borders. On this
understanding, the musicians devise exciting concert programmes with
great enthusiasm and experience, which are highly praised by critics and
audiences alike. Whether music by Korngold, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and
Tansmann is heard in one evening, or compositions by Sofia Gubaidulina
and Benjamin Britten are juxtaposed - the ensemble always succeeds in
revealing the multi-layered connections in an intelligent and inspiring way.
This approach is also reflected in the Karol Szymanowski Quartet’s
exciting discography, which includes works by Haydn, Dvořák and
Shostakovich, as well as numerous rarely recorded compositions by
Bacewicz, Zelenski, Zarebski, Friedman, Weinberg and Rózycki. A three-
part series is dedicated to the music of Karol Szymanowski in the context
of the three music capitals Paris, Vienna and Moscow, the most recent
recordings include “Les Vendredis“, a collection of string quartets by
various Russian composers, which were performed at the famous Friday
concerts of the publisher Belaieff at the end of the 19th century. However,
the ensemble’s close connection to its audience is created above all in the
numerous live concerts it performs around the globe. The quartet has
been a guest at renowned concert halls such as New York’s Carnegie Hall,
London’s Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Vienna
Musikverein, the Berlin Konzerthaus and the Shanghai Symphony Hall and
has performed at the international festivals in the Rheingau, BBC Proms,
Schleswig-Holstein, Schubertiade and Lockenhaus as well as concert series
in Los Angeles, Paris, London, Warsaw, Basel and Perth.
In every concert, the quartet shows itself to be open to the unexpected
and the unpredictable, to new impulses and thoughts. And so, a uniquely
intimate atmosphere is always created that inspires audiences worldwide
and has carried the Karol Szymanowski Quartet through every renewal
and change for almost 30 years.
KSQ 2024/25