The music which Szymanowski wrote to the 5th act of Tadeusz Miciński's drama Prince Potemkin in the early 1925 had been commissioned by Leon Schiller, director and artistic manager of the Warsaw Bogusławski Theatre. The drama discusses the events related to the rebellion of the crew of Prince Potemkin battleship against the tsarist power, and Szymanowski's music accompanies the scene of the vision experienced by lieutenant Szmidt and invoking, among other characters, the seven-year-old Dalai Lama. The music builds the mysterious mood, and the melodic turns it uses are exotic (chaplains' and Dalai Lama's chants), modal and occasionally evocative of the music of the Podhale area.
Prince Potemkin in a marginal work in Szymanowski's output. The drama for which it was written was premiered on 6th March 1925 and did not score a success. After a few nights the music was removed from the production on the grounds of excessively high cost of employing an orchestra. Since then Prince Potemkin has sometimes been included in concert programmes, and its recording has been released by Marco Polo and Naxos.
Author: Anna Iwanicka-Nijakowska, September 2007.