Young Poland in musicThe composers of "Young Poland" rebelled against positivism, not trusting the belief that reason would explain and help solvethe problems of man at the turn of the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies. Various phenomena tumbled in the cultural melting pot, lined with the philosophical concept of Friedrich Nietzsche, with hisideas of Apollonian and Dionysian beauty, or fed by the pessimisticthought of Arthur Schopenhauer. Creators of the late nineteenthand early twentieth centuries sought a new kind of expression -also in the song genre, which became representative still of theRomantic era, with it's idea of feeling and believing. After all, insong, as in a drop of water, it is possible to express the universe ofhuman emotions - both from the perspective of "I" (Ich-Lieder) and"YOU" (Du-Lieder), as one of the researchers of lyric, MieczyslawTomaszewski, wrote about in his book From Confession to Crying. Studies on Romantic Song (Academy of Music in Krakow, 1997). For the composers chosen to be the protagonists of this album, song became an expression of deep feelings, referring both tothe heritage of Culture and the Nature experienced, giving theinternally shattered individual a state of solace and fulfilment, albeit temporary. The tone of poignant loneliness is shown inessence, among other things, by the opening stanza from the poemZale ('Regrets') of Lucjan Rydel, set to music by Boleslaw Raczynski:"May I not stand so alone / With my sorrow and despair, / May thestars at least weep / Looking into my window". At the same time, the lyrical subject externalizes the desire to unite his existentialpain with Nature, thus opening up a cosmological space. Karol Szymanowski significantly referred to the Young Polandformation - he was it's co-founder, along with Ludomir Rozycki, Apolinary Szeluto and Grzegorz Fitelberg. In an interview in "KurierPoznanski" in 1932, he noted: "It brought, as it were, a protestagainst academism, and established contact with what washappening in the wide world: the main vertical of contemporarymusic. What we were going for (there were several of us [... ]) wasto acquire a contemporary technique of composition: contemporarymeans of expression. We learned wherever we could learnsomething, and we carried it home. "1In the poetics of grief, longing and nostalgiaThe composers immortalized on the album were Young Poland ormodernist lyricists - their music was tinged with a longing andreflective note of nostalgia. A tone of sorrow, well known fromthe works of Fryderyk Chopin, is found in many of them. HenrykOpienski (1870-1942) in his Piesn majowa ('May Song') musicalizeda poem by Marian Gawalewicz (1852-1910), a writer and publicistassociated with Lviv. The final stanza sets a lyrical mood: "Let thecharm of spring surround you, / let your heart dream / Songs, lights, and scents / flow through the green grove". Boleslaw Raczynski (1879-1937), on the other hand, drew on the poetic texts of Lucjan Rydel. The message of the poetry brings an oneiric mood: "Later, earlier / The dream will shine through / And I will stop loving... / Under my eyelid / Tears are burning me, / Tears unbidden!" (Hania IX: Wiatry zwialy ten kwiat bialy /'The winds blew away... '). Jadwiga Sarnecka (1877-1913) selected stanzas with a transcendent dimension from poetry of Rydel: "Noisy whirlwind of deaf fields / Fly as far as possible, / Take with you the bitter pain, / What burns me in my heart". Juliusz Wertheim (1880-1928) also touched on the theme of nostalgia, drawing on the poem Wszystkich kwiatow mi nie trzeba ('I do not need all the flowers') by Wincenty Rapacki (1865-1943). One of the figures rightfully restored to musical culture is Jerzy Gablenz (1888-1937) - a musician and lawyer in one person (interestingly: the owner of a vinegar and mustard factory, later also a pickle factory). He had the personality of a songwriter: he composed more than eighty songs. Two of this rich collection are recorded on disc: Cudna promienna ('Wonderful radiant') and Snia mi sie cudne twe oczy ('I dream of your wonderful eyes') - both to words by Antoni Waskowski (1885-1966). Waskowski was a versatile figure: painter (he developed his style under the influence of his cousin Stanislaw Wyspianski), poet and writer, playwright, journalist and art critic, with a life integrally tied to Krakow. In the recalled songs - by Opienski, Raczynski, Sarnecka, Wertheim or Gablenz - word and sound form one coherent whole. Music flows, in melodic and sensual phrases, from the poetic text, it's intonation and key mood. It is not against, but enters into a harmonious relationship, consistent with the structure and meaning of the poems. It highlights meanings and senses, whether it becomes, according to Mieczyslaw Tomaszewski's classification, a lapidary lyric ("topos of a drop of water") or an ephemeral lyric ("topos of a starry sky"). Therefore, in songs composed in the "impressionistic" mode, the loosening of major-minor tonal rigor towards sensitivity to timbre, the creation of iridescent harmonies or the development of color sensualism is evident. On the other hand, in songs written in the "expressive" mode, tonal clarity and contrasts come to the fore, dynamizing the flow of music. As Kazimierz Wyka wrote: "Before 1900 [... ] lyrical impressionism was generally sufficient. But already at the peak of Young Poland [... ] the consequences of actual symbolism and expressionist tendencies make themselves known [... ]. "2The phenomenon ofKazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer's poetryKazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer (1865-1940) became the personification of Young Poland - he was called "the first Polish decadent" or "a born pessimist", whose attitudes became characterized by melancholy and unreconciliation with the world. He practiced mood and symbolist lyricism; Stanislaw Wyspianski cast him as a poet in his Wesele ('The Wedding'). In his poem-manifesto Koniec wieku XIX ('The End of the Nineteenth Century'), searching for ideals and values, Tetmajer stated: "But in the soul there is always something at the bottom / that among use desires, among pleasures demands. " His poetry combined contrasts and contradictions: sensuality with spirituality, the struggle for noble ideals with a sense of hopelessness, and what distinguishes it"musically" is the variability of moods. The tone of Tetmajer's poetry resonates in the songs of Wladyslaw Zelenski (1837-1921) - Blada roza ('Pale Rose'), Juliusz Wertheim (1880-1928) - Na mej duszy strunach ('On the strings of my soul'), Mieczyslaw Karlowicz (1876-1909) - Idzie na pola ('He goes to the fields'), and Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) - Daleko zostal caly swiat ('The whole world is far away'). It is worth mentioning that Karlowicz composed almost all of his lyric poems in one year - 1896, in his youthful style. At that time, among other things, he wrote ten compositions to the words of precisely Przerwa-Tetmajer; they belong to the so-called personal lyric: the composer identified himself with the lyrical subject. Karol Szymanowski is an example of an artist who wrote songs all his life. And it was in his song lyricism that changes in musical language took place, which then permeated into other genres - piano sonatas, violin concertos or symphonies. The essence of the composer's attitude is perfectly reflected in the title of Tadeusz A. Zielinski's book - Szymanowski. Lyric and Ecstasy (Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Krakow 1997). It focuses, as if through a lens, those qualities that, for the author of Stabat Mater and Harnasie, determine the essence of his individual style: the lyrical character of the statement, and at the same time the tendency to strong and expressive climaxes in the shaping of the sound narrative. Szymanowski's songs, like those of other Young Poland artists, became a record in sound of the artist's biography, a textualization of pe