ABSTRACT
Szymanowski’s works of the first decade of the twentieth century (from the Preludes, Op. 1 to the Second Piano Sonata, Op. 21) are pervaded by a highly chromatic harmonic style derived and extending from the music of Wagner and Richard Strauss. Although the opening prelude of Op. 1 is Chopinesque in its use of delicate chromatic shading of a clear B minor tonality [see Chopin: His Influence on Szymanowski], others in the set, particularly number four, already move beyond Chopin in the consistent tonal ambiguity created by the avoidance or disguise of clear points of cadential resolution. Chromatic harmonies typical of the late-nineteenth century Germanic idiom – diminished sevenths, augmented triads, and half diminished chords (of which Wagner’s ‘Tristan chord’ is the most well-known example) – are characteristically connected by semitonal contrapuntal motion. This style is developed further in many of the songs of this decade, particularly Opp. 2, 5, 11, 17 and 20. The post-Tristan chromaticism becomes so pervasive that the recourse to diatonic cadence in the final bars can begin to sound forced since the connection with preceding harmonic processes is weak. The symmetrical properties of many of Szymanowski’s favourite chromatic chords is occasionally extended to produce passages controlled by whole-tone harmonies (see Example 1, overleaf).
