ABSTRACT
In view of a familial link by way of Feliks Blumenfeld with progressive musical circles in St Petersburg, Stanislaw Szymanowski's insistence that both of his sons should study in Warsaw seems perverse. Understandable though his anti-Russian sentiments were, it would have been impossible to claim that Warsaw was anything other than a musical backwater. Undoubtedly, however, the relatively parlous state of its musical institutions and the undistinguished quality of most native composition at that time, contributed significantly to Szymanowski's realization that eventually he had to seek his own way. Commenting on this stage of his career many years later, he compared the poverty of turn-of-the-century Polish musical life with the splendidly diverse riches to be discovered abroad:
