ABSTRACT

Dance occupies an increasingly important role in Szymanowski’s works from the end of his Germanic phase onwards. Although it will be demonstrated that dance was primarily significant as a Dionysian symbol of Nietzschean life-forces, it could be argued that as his leg injury increasingly affected his mobility, composition of hedonistic dance movements provided some sort of emotional compensation. That the composer enjoyed dancing in his youth we know from the memoirs of Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, who recalled that Szymanowski rubbed embrocation into his knee joint when he expected to attend a social occasion. 1 Later in life he delighted in attending the weddings and parties of the Polish Highlanders, affording him ample opportunities to admire the dancing skills of the mountaineers.