ABSTRACT
The musical activities of Szymanowski’s early years were centred around the piano at the family home in Tymoszówka. His father offered him some preliminary instruction, and later he took formal lessons at the music school run by his uncle, Gustaw Neuhaus, in Elizavetgrad. On arriving in Warsaw to study, he focussed on composition, which, according to his fellow student Ludomir Różycki, he always did at the piano:
Szymanowski always composed at the piano … Above all else he loved Chopin, and after Chopin the piano compositions of Scriabin … many times when he was writing his [first] piano sonata have I found Szymanowski at the piano, studying in precise detail the structure of piano passages by Chopin and Scriabin. He saw, or knew how to discover, in this music the secret of piano style. In fact all of his passages at that time were marked by marvellous feeling for the piano. 1
