Szymanowski composed Lullaby Op. 52 in Saint Jean-de-Luz, a town in the French Pyrenees, in July 1925. He was staying there with Paweł Kochański and his wife at the invitation of Dorothy Jordan-Robinson, his American friend to whom he had dedicated King Roger - and this work, too.
Its title referring to the Basque name of the villa in which Jordan-Robinson was living, Lullaby was Szymanowski's first violin work since he wrote Three Paganini Caprices in 1918. It is a subtly lyrical composition whose poetic and mysterious mood is achieved with very moderate means: sparing harmony, simplified texture, restrained colour effects.
The work had its premiere in Warsaw on 14th October 1925 with Paweł Kochański playing the violin part. In later years Wacław Niemczyk and Ludwik Urstein, Eugenia Umińska and Jerzy Lefeld, Wanda Wiłkomirska and Tadeusz Chmielewski, Krzysztof Jakowicz and Krystyna Borucińska as well as Kaja Danczowska gladly incorporated Lullaby in their repertoires, and their interpretations were released by Polskie Nagrania, Muza, and other labels.
Vienna's Universal Edition published Lullaby in 1925.
Author: Anna Iwanicka-Nijakowska, September 2007.