Study On Compositional Techniques Of Karol Szymanowski's4th Symphony Concertante,OP.60

Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) is a renowned Polish composer of the contemporary period. In1905, while studying composition at the Warsaw Music Institute, together with a group of young composers, he formed the "League of Polish Youth Composers", aspiring to create a modern Polish music both on the basis of national tradition as well as to allow for modern Polish music to occupy a place within the tapestry of accumulated richness continually developing in European music. Later, during a career of over thirty years in composing, due to changes in the development of his personal aesthetic tastes, he was successively exposed to influences of different styles and schools, and underwent three very different periods of creative work. Moreover, in the three periods of related entries in many musical dictionaries summarizing Szymanowski's work-the Romantic Period, Impressionist Period, and the Nationalistic Period-his writing is differentiated to include symphonies, concertos, chamber music, operas, ballets and vocal compositions, which lead to him attaining global fame, thus becoming a Polish composer to be written into the annals of post-Chopin musical history.This academic dissertation addresses as its research objective the "Fourth Symphony (Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra)" composed during Szymanowski's latter years (the third period of his creative work) between the years1931-1932, from the perspective of the technique of its thematic composition, musical structure, harmony and polyphony, orchestration, timbre, as well as the structural patterns of the work, and undertakes an analytical research and discussion of its overall system.This academic dissertation is comprised of an introduction, six sections, and a conclusion.In terms of the introduction, this part of the text outlines and introduces the general circumstances of Szymanowski's lifelong composition of symphonies-including style, theme, background, form, technical composition, its relation to folk music, etc., in order for us to have a deeper understanding of the development his thought, the stylistic transformations, and the changes in technique involved in the composition of his symphonies.The first through sixth sections form the main body of the dissertation, and take us, via various examples, through a detailed systematic research and analysis of all aspects of the form and technicai composition of Szymanowski's Fourth Symphony.(For exampie, aspects of thematic and musical structure, harmony and polyphony, orchestration and timbre, etc.).In terms of the conclusion, based on the analysis, research, discussion and arguments in the various chapters above, this section of the dissertation proposes that only after having gone through the two earlier periods of Romanticism and Impressionism, did Szymanowski finally gain a new vitality in his writing from Polish folk music, taking shape in a succinct, unaffected musical style and a distinct form and technique of composition, exploring a unique style of modern Polish music. Moreover, this is just the aspect from which those of us composing musical works which possess a Chinese style of artistic conception can learn. Likewise, this is exactly the objective of the writing of this academic dissertation.