23 EVA ZAVARO, CLÉMENT LEFEBVRE Now here we are in Italy, in Sicily, with the Tarantella. Did Szymanowski have Chopin’s Tarentelle at the back of his mind? Clément Lefebvre: Of course, he knew this piece by his compatriot, whose music he admired, but he didn’t use it as a model. There’s a touch of cynicism in Chopin’s Tarentelle: Death dances and wreaks havoc with a smile! Szymanowski’s piece is much more strident. The piano part is clearly conceived in orchestral terms. The difficulty for me was to have to forget the piano, to accept the challenge of incorporating elements at the very limit of playability by thinking orchestrally. Indeed, Szymanowski’s best friend Grzegorz Fitelberg (1879-1953) did orchestrate the piece later. The keyboard writing is accomplished, but one senses that the piano is an intermediate step towards larger forces. Eva Zavaro: The tarantella has often served as a source of inspiration for virtuoso pieces. I’m thinking in particular of the Scherzo-Tarentelle of Henryk Wieniawski (1853-80) and the Introduction et Tarentelle of Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908). Szymanowski’s take on it is vertiginous, extremely fast-moving, an intoxicating, diabolical dance.
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