Karol Szymanowski was a Polish composer of the late-Romantic and modernist periods, born in Tymoszówka in present-day Ukraine and active in Berlin, Vienna, and later Warsaw, where he served as director of the State Conservatory from 1926 to 1930. His output includes symphonies, operas such as King Roger, the ballet-pantomime Harnasie, violin concertos, piano works, and songs, evolving from late-Romantic beginnings through an impressionistic, chromatic middle period to a final style rooted in the folk music of the Tatra highlanders. Suffering from tuberculosis, he sought treatment in Davos and Grasse before dying at a sanatorium in Lausanne in 1937, at the age of 54.

A leading figure of the Young Poland movement, Szymanowski is credited with forging a modern Polish national style comparable in ambition to that of Chopin a century earlier, synthesizing Debussy-like impressionism, folk material, and his own harmonic language. Long overshadowed internationally, his music, particularly King Roger and the violin concertos, has enjoyed a substantial revival in performance and recording since the late twentieth century, and he is now regarded as Poland’s most significant composer between Chopin and the present day.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karol_Szymanowski