Young Highlanders Descend Singing was commissioned by the publisher of women's "Pani" magazine and Szymanowski composed it in Zakopane in January 1924.
Young Highlanders Descend Singing (Idom se siuhaje dołu, śpiewajęcy...) was commissioned by the publisher of women's Pani magazine and Szymanowski composed it in Zakopane in January 1924. This is what he wrote about the circumstances of writing this song in a letter Stanisław Mierczyński, violinist, ethnographer and would-be author of the collection Muzyka Podhala (The Music of Podhale):
... Ten days ago Zmigryd[er, publisher of 'Pani' magazine] asked me through my brother for a harmonization of a highlanders song for the Zakop[ane edition] of 'Pani' ... I have already done this song and sent it to him through Makuszynski ... If he shows this song to you (ask him for that!), regardless of what he thinks of it (I consider it sordid), tell him it is stupendous! - that it opens totally new horizons for Polish music (which in a way is true, incidentally) and that these horizons are being opened through his agency on nothing but the Bosoms of his 'Pani'! ... As for the song, I actually do not consider it quite 'sordid' - I have not achieved what I intended in highlanders' music, but I am beginning to understand the roads to follow in this directions, and this is important for future plans.1
Young Highlanders Descend Singing was printed as a facsimile of the manuscript in No. 8/9 of Pani in 1924 and was later incorporated by Szymanowski into his ballet Harnasie.
The recording of the song in the interpretation of Piotr Beczała and pianist Reinild Mees features on one of the four CDs of the set released by the Dutch label Channel Classics in 2004.
Notes:
1 Karol Szymanowski. Korespondencja, Tom II: lata 1920-1926, cz. 2, s. 11-12, list z 12 I 1924 do Stanisława Mierczyńskiego, oprac. Teresa Chylińska [Karol Szymanowski. Letters, vol. 2: 1920-26, part 2, p. 11-12, letter to Stanisław Mierczynski of 12th January 1924 ], PWM, Kraków 1994.
Author: Anna Iwanicka-Nijakowska, September 2007.