Karol Szymanowski. Music as an Autobiography

This book offers an original and brilliant study of Karol Szymanowski's imagination and musical language as an encrypted autobiographical message and is recognised as a revealing and groundbreaking interpretation of the composer's music and biography. Inspired by psychoanalysis, queer theory and musical hermeneutics, the author uncovers the hidden homosexual references of Szymanowski's musical works. Through a meticulous analysis of Szymanowski's vocal and instrumental compositions in the perspective of his less well-known literary works, intimate autobiographical notes and allusions contained in letters, the author reconstructs a coherent picture of Szymanowski's musical imagination and biography. The book dramatically challenges understandings of many of Szymanowski's works, allowing us to discover the unknown face of the composer’s work through its unexpected and hitherto unnoticed connections to his life.