PROGRAM

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909), one of Poland’s most distinguished composers, experienced during his short life a remarkable chapter devoted to mountain exploration and photography – an achievement that secured his place in the history of both Polish mountaineering and photography. Although his interest in photography began in his youth, his greatest accomplishments in the medium came during the final three years of his life, between 1906 and 1909. Photography is also inextricably linked to his tragic death. In February 1909, he was killed by an avalanche beneath Mały Kościelec while on a ski expedition to test his newly purchased Globus camera with 13 × 18 cm plates – what today we would describe as a large-format camera.

It is impossible to determine how many photographs Karłowicz made during his lifetime. His earliest pictures were domestic scenes taken with an “automatic revolver” camera designed by Aleksander Karoly, capable of exposing twelve plates. Later, while living in Berlin, he used a miniature Pocket Kodak. From 1906 onwards he worked with a folding plate camera using 9 × 12 cm glass plates, fitted with a Zeiss Tessar lens and a Koilos shutter. It was with this camera that he created the photographs presented in this exhibition.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Photographs presents reproductions of photographs whose original negatives or prints have been preserved in the collection of the Central Mountain Tourism Centre of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) in Kraków. The exhibition features a selection from more than two hundred surviving photographs by the composer.

Presented at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, the exhibition builds upon the earlier project Chords of Light, which has been shown in cultural institutions across Poland since 2025. This new edition significantly expands that exhibition, presenting 77 photographs – more than twice the number included in previous versions. It has been prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of Karłowicz’s birth.

For several decades, we have become accustomed to saying the phrase “Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin” in a single breath. It has become so familiar that Szczecin and Mieczysław Karłowicz seem inseparably linked. We even carry this connection far beyond our city. Wherever our initiatives appear, wherever our musicians perform, and wherever we promote our events, the name of our patron is heard time and again.

But do we ourselves truly know who Mieczysław Karłowicz was? Do we know what kind of person he was, what mattered to him, and what he sought to convey through his music, his writings, and his life? On the 150th anniversary of Karłowicz’s birth, for the first time in our history, we will ask ourselves: “What does it mean to have him as our patron?” And further: “What does it mean not only for the Philharmonic, but also for our entire concert community?”

Karłowicz Fest is an unprecedented encounter with the music of Mieczysław Karłowicz. Each evening, we will discover the unique value his music holds for us-not only for the residents of Szczecin, but also for all the visitors who will come to take advantage of the rare opportunity to hear his masterful symphonic poems performed by Poland’s leading orchestras.

Youth as the courage to confront the world-this idea can be found in two of Mieczysław Karłowicz’s early works, composed during his years of study in Berlin. The Violin Concerto in A major, written for his mentor and violin teacher Stanisław Barcewicz, is a work full of energy, lyricism, and youthful expressiveness. The Rebirth Symphony goes a step further, becoming a musical narrative about struggling with pessimism and finding the strength to rise and begin anew. In these works, we hear a young artist boldly entering the world and taking on its challenges.

The symphony is one of the most personal statements made by the young Karłowicz. The composer himself provided it with a programme describing the story of a soul travelling from doubt to inner transformation. The work begins with an image of shattered youthful dreams and a sense of emptiness-a moment when a person loses direction and purpose. Yet from this state of inertia, a new life force gradually emerges: first comes a vision of happiness, then a painful confrontation with reality, and finally a decisive struggle in which the soul regains its balance and achieves triumph. The symphony’s finale brings a hymn of rebirth-the conviction that, despite experiencing doubt and despair, a person can find within themselves the energy to start anew. It is with this conviction that we will conclude the festival’s opening evening.

Listen to the excerpts of Karłowicz's works to be performed at this concert:

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909), one of Poland’s most distinguished composers, experienced during his short life a remarkable chapter devoted to mountain exploration and photography – an achievement that secured his place in the history of both Polish mountaineering and photography. Although his interest in photography began in his youth, his greatest accomplishments in the medium came during the final three years of his life, between 1906 and 1909. Photography is also inextricably linked to his tragic death. In February 1909, he was killed by an avalanche beneath Mały Kościelec while on a ski expedition to test his newly purchased Globus camera with 13 × 18 cm plates – what today we would describe as a large-format camera.

It is impossible to determine how many photographs Karłowicz made during his lifetime. His earliest pictures were domestic scenes taken with an “automatic revolver” camera designed by Aleksander Karoly, capable of exposing twelve plates. Later, while living in Berlin, he used a miniature Pocket Kodak. From 1906 onwards he worked with a folding plate camera using 9 × 12 cm glass plates, fitted with a Zeiss Tessar lens and a Koilos shutter. It was with this camera that he created the photographs presented in this exhibition.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Photographs presents reproductions of photographs whose original negatives or prints have been preserved in the collection of the Central Mountain Tourism Centre of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) in Kraków. The exhibition features a selection from more than two hundred surviving photographs by the composer.

Presented at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, the exhibition builds upon the earlier project Chords of Light, which has been shown in cultural institutions across Poland since 2025. This new edition significantly expands that exhibition, presenting 77 photographs – more than twice the number included in previous versions. It has been prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of Karłowicz’s birth.

The spectacle UP-Down – being Karłowicz is a unique theatrical production by the Szczecin Philharmonic. Its main character is the institution's patron, portrayed in a unique light where emotions that influenced the composer's life and work are brought to the forefront. The spectacle's plot revolves around the protagonist's five primary emotions: Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness. These emotions shape not only the text but, above all, the music that reflects the characteristics of each emotion.

The performance portrays Karłowicz throughout his life, first as a boy and later as a man, at times guided by entirely contradictory emotions. These emotions reflect the deeply human nature of this extraordinarily gifted artist.

Karłowicz was not only one of Poland’s most creative composers but also a devoted lover of the Tatra Mountains. His diaries, in which he described his mountain expeditions and the emotions they evoked in remarkable detail, inspired a story about his unique sensitivity and perception of the world.

The performance draws on Karłowicz’s symphonic poems, which served as the basis for a series of new works specially composed for the production and presented in electronic arrangements.

The premiere of UP-Down – being Karłowicz took place on 1 October 2017 at the Szczecin Philharmonic.

Watch a feature report about the performance (in Polish only):

The time has come to get to know the patron of our Philharmonic better – Mieczysław Karłowicz. To do so, we will set off together on a journey… into the mountains he loved deeply, which rewarded him with creative inspiration.

It was the mountains that inspired his symphonic poems-works filled with vast spaces, crisp mountain air, and the extraordinary power of nature.

Mountain excursions, however, are not only about admiring the landscape. They also offer an opportunity to reflect on one’s own emotions, and Karłowicz’s music is rich in them.

During this concert, we will discover just how much can be seen and felt through music – and how sound can tell stories without the need for words.

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909), one of Poland’s most distinguished composers, experienced during his short life a remarkable chapter devoted to mountain exploration and photography – an achievement that secured his place in the history of both Polish mountaineering and photography. Although his interest in photography began in his youth, his greatest accomplishments in the medium came during the final three years of his life, between 1906 and 1909. Photography is also inextricably linked to his tragic death. In February 1909, he was killed by an avalanche beneath Mały Kościelec while on a ski expedition to test his newly purchased Globus camera with 13 × 18 cm plates – what today we would describe as a large-format camera.

It is impossible to determine how many photographs Karłowicz made during his lifetime. His earliest pictures were domestic scenes taken with an “automatic revolver” camera designed by Aleksander Karoly, capable of exposing twelve plates. Later, while living in Berlin, he used a miniature Pocket Kodak. From 1906 onwards he worked with a folding plate camera using 9 × 12 cm glass plates, fitted with a Zeiss Tessar lens and a Koilos shutter. It was with this camera that he created the photographs presented in this exhibition.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Photographs presents reproductions of photographs whose original negatives or prints have been preserved in the collection of the Central Mountain Tourism Centre of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) in Kraków. The exhibition features a selection from more than two hundred surviving photographs by the composer.

Presented at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, the exhibition builds upon the earlier project Chords of Light, which has been shown in cultural institutions across Poland since 2025. This new edition significantly expands that exhibition, presenting 77 photographs – more than twice the number included in previous versions. It has been prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of Karłowicz’s birth.

Through its vivid, multi-layered narrative and diverse cinematic language, the film presents a modern and compelling documentary aimed at a broad contemporary audience. It introduces Karłowicz as an extraordinary artist and a man of many passions, exploring his music, inspirations, creative process, and travels, as well as his fascination with photography, journalism, and the Polish mountains.

The screening will also serve as an introduction to a discussion devoted to Karłowicz’s life and artistic legacy, which will take place immediately after the film. The event will provide an opportunity to reflect on his music, his artistic achievements, and the remarkable personality of our patron, whose life and work continue to inspire new generations of listeners and artists.

Watch the film trailer:

What role does solitude play in an artist’s life? Can the creative process be compared to a mountain expedition-one marked by silence, concentration, risk, and the constant challenge of pushing beyond one’s own limits? The starting point for this unique discussion is the figure of Mieczysław Karłowicz-an outstanding composer, mountaineer, and lover of the mountains, whose life and work continue to captivate audiences through their intensity and tragic ending.

The panel discussion will explore the relationship between art and the experience of solitude-both the solitude inherent in the creative process and that encountered during solitary journeys through the mountains. Participants will reflect on the mountains as a space of contemplation, freedom, and inner dialogue, and consider how encounters with nature can shape an artist’s sensitivity and influence the character of their work.

Karłowicz’s life, his music, and his passion for exploring the Tatra Mountains will serve as a point of departure for a broader reflection on the condition of the artist and the human need to transcend boundaries-both artistic and personal.

The discussion will be preceded by a screening of the documentary film Mieczysław Karłowicz – A Solitary Journey, directed by Tomasz Knittel.

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909), one of Poland’s most distinguished composers, experienced during his short life a remarkable chapter devoted to mountain exploration and photography – an achievement that secured his place in the history of both Polish mountaineering and photography. Although his interest in photography began in his youth, his greatest accomplishments in the medium came during the final three years of his life, between 1906 and 1909. Photography is also inextricably linked to his tragic death. In February 1909, he was killed by an avalanche beneath Mały Kościelec while on a ski expedition to test his newly purchased Globus camera with 13 × 18 cm plates – what today we would describe as a large-format camera.

It is impossible to determine how many photographs Karłowicz made during his lifetime. His earliest pictures were domestic scenes taken with an “automatic revolver” camera designed by Aleksander Karoly, capable of exposing twelve plates. Later, while living in Berlin, he used a miniature Pocket Kodak. From 1906 onwards he worked with a folding plate camera using 9 × 12 cm glass plates, fitted with a Zeiss Tessar lens and a Koilos shutter. It was with this camera that he created the photographs presented in this exhibition.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Photographs presents reproductions of photographs whose original negatives or prints have been preserved in the collection of the Central Mountain Tourism Centre of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) in Kraków. The exhibition features a selection from more than two hundred surviving photographs by the composer.

Presented at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, the exhibition builds upon the earlier project Chords of Light, which has been shown in cultural institutions across Poland since 2025. This new edition significantly expands that exhibition, presenting 77 photographs – more than twice the number included in previous versions. It has been prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of Karłowicz’s birth.

We invite you to encounter the music of Mieczysław Karłowicz in its most intimate form. This concert offers a glimpse of the composer before he created his great symphonic poems. In his songs for voice and piano, we can already discover many of the themes, moods and emotions that would later return in his mature orchestral works.

During a single evening, all twenty-two surviving songs by Karłowicz will be performed. The composer probably wrote twenty-nine in total, but seven were lost during the Second World War. What remains therefore constitutes an almost complete record of one of the earliest stages of his artistic development.

Particularly remarkable is the fact that most of these songs were written within a very short period, when Karłowicz was just nineteen or twenty years old and studying composition in Berlin. Even at this early stage, we encounter a world that would become so characteristic of his later music: solitude, longing, memories of lost happiness, a fascination with nature, transience and death. The titles themselves reveal much: My soul is sad, I remember quiet, bright, golden days, sometimes, when I dream for a long time, half asleep, in the evening silence, and she shakes rust-coloured leaves from the trees.

The poetry of Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer holds a particularly important place in the collection. Karłowicz also set texts by Juliusz Słowacki, Zygmunt Krasiński, Maria Konopnicka, Adam Asnyk and Kazimierz Gliński. Voice and piano work together to bring out the meaning of the words, shape the atmosphere, emphasise the imagery, and heighten the emotional tension.

During the concert, the twenty-two songs will not be performed in opus or chronological order. Instead, they have been divided between soprano Izabela Matuła and baritone Tomasz Rak. The two voices will therefore guide us through the entire surviving world of Karłowicz’s songs. Mateusz Słowikowski will accompany them on piano. Here, we can already glimpse the beginnings of the emotional world that would later expand into the scale of Eternal Songs, Returning Waves, and The Sorrowful Tale, which we will hear during the first Karłowicz Festival at The Philharmonic in Szczecin.

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909), one of Poland’s most distinguished composers, experienced during his short life a remarkable chapter devoted to mountain exploration and photography – an achievement that secured his place in the history of both Polish mountaineering and photography. Although his interest in photography began in his youth, his greatest accomplishments in the medium came during the final three years of his life, between 1906 and 1909. Photography is also inextricably linked to his tragic death. In February 1909, he was killed by an avalanche beneath Mały Kościelec while on a ski expedition to test his newly purchased Globus camera with 13 × 18 cm plates – what today we would describe as a large-format camera.

It is impossible to determine how many photographs Karłowicz made during his lifetime. His earliest pictures were domestic scenes taken with an “automatic revolver” camera designed by Aleksander Karoly, capable of exposing twelve plates. Later, while living in Berlin, he used a miniature Pocket Kodak. From 1906 onwards he worked with a folding plate camera using 9 × 12 cm glass plates, fitted with a Zeiss Tessar lens and a Koilos shutter. It was with this camera that he created the photographs presented in this exhibition.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Photographs presents reproductions of photographs whose original negatives or prints have been preserved in the collection of the Central Mountain Tourism Centre of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) in Kraków. The exhibition features a selection from more than two hundred surviving photographs by the composer.

Presented at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, the exhibition builds upon the earlier project Chords of Light, which has been shown in cultural institutions across Poland since 2025. This new edition significantly expands that exhibition, presenting 77 photographs – more than twice the number included in previous versions. It has been prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of Karłowicz’s birth.

The more we mature, the more deeply we look within ourselves. The music of Mieczysław Karłowicz clearly reflects such a journey – from music still focused on form and beauty of sound to music that becomes a record of inner experiences, emotions, and questions. The pairing of Serenade for Strings and Eternal Songs allows us to hear this transformation with exceptional clarity.

Serenade for String Orchestra, Op. 2, composed in 1897, belongs to Karłowicz’s youthful creative period. It is elegant and transparent music, structured in four movements and featuring distinct dance elements. The march, the lyrical Romance, the graceful waltz, and the lively finale delight with their lightness and natural charm. In this work, the composer demonstrates his sensitivity to sound and form, yet he remains close to the external world – the world of style and gesture.

In Eternal Songs, Op. 10, this perspective changes fundamentally. The three movements – Song of Eternal Longing, Song of Love and Death, and Song of the Universal Being-lead us into experiences that recur throughout Karłowicz’s oeuvre: longing, love, the search for solace, and the quest for meaning. The composer portrays emotions and states that unfold within the human soul. The rich and colourful orchestration becomes a means of expressing what is difficult to put into words.

The premiere of Eternal Songs on 22 January 1909 brought Karłowicz tremendous success and, for the first time, clearly confirmed his position as one of the most important composers of his generation. It was a moment of full recognition and artistic fulfilment, heralding further development of his creative path. Just over two weeks later, on 8 February 1909, the thirty-two-year-old composer was killed in an avalanche in the Tatra Mountains.

The pairing of these two works therefore reveals not only the development of a musical style, but above all the journey of a human being – from what is still external and shaped by form to what is deepest and most personal.

To begin, a real musical treat: a story known to almost everyone. Rats overrun Hamelin, and the desperate townspeople turn to a mysterious piper for help. Using music, he leads the plague out of the town, but when the time comes to pay him, the townspeople break their promise. The Pied Piper returns once more – but this time, it is not the rats but the children who follow his melody. Heinrich Urban drew on this dark legend in Der Rattenfänger von Hameln, Op. 25. It is no coincidence that this work opens a concert devoted to Karłowicz. Urban was his composition teacher during his studies in Berlin, and The Pied Piper of Hamelin reveals a composer fascinated by musical narrative – by the possibility of telling a story using nothing but an orchestra. Before we hear two works by the pupil, we will therefore encounter his teacher and one of the musical worlds from which the later symphonic composer Karłowicz emerged.

Listen to selected excerpts from the concert programme:

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909), one of Poland’s most distinguished composers, experienced during his short life a remarkable chapter devoted to mountain exploration and photography – an achievement that secured his place in the history of both Polish mountaineering and photography. Although his interest in photography began in his youth, his greatest accomplishments in the medium came during the final three years of his life, between 1906 and 1909. Photography is also inextricably linked to his tragic death. In February 1909, he was killed by an avalanche beneath Mały Kościelec while on a ski expedition to test his newly purchased Globus camera with 13 × 18 cm plates – what today we would describe as a large-format camera.

It is impossible to determine how many photographs Karłowicz made during his lifetime. His earliest pictures were domestic scenes taken with an “automatic revolver” camera designed by Aleksander Karoly, capable of exposing twelve plates. Later, while living in Berlin, he used a miniature Pocket Kodak. From 1906 onwards he worked with a folding plate camera using 9 × 12 cm glass plates, fitted with a Zeiss Tessar lens and a Koilos shutter. It was with this camera that he created the photographs presented in this exhibition.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Photographs presents reproductions of photographs whose original negatives or prints have been preserved in the collection of the Central Mountain Tourism Centre of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) in Kraków. The exhibition features a selection from more than two hundred surviving photographs by the composer.

Presented at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, the exhibition builds upon the earlier project Chords of Light, which has been shown in cultural institutions across Poland since 2025. This new edition significantly expands that exhibition, presenting 77 photographs – more than twice the number included in previous versions. It has been prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of Karłowicz’s birth.

During the festival’s opening concert, we spoke about youth not as a matter of age, but as the courage to confront the world. In a sense, this was our first key to interpreting the life and work of Karłowicz. What, then, will be the next?

To many of his contemporaries, Mieczysław Karłowicz appeared reserved, restrained, and reluctant to seek company. He gave the impression of being withdrawn, as though distant from the world and from other people. Yet this image was only a surface impression. His letters reveal someone quite different: a warm and loyal friend who cherished relationships, meetings, and human connections. This duality-outward reserve and inner intensity-leads us directly to his music.

In his symphonic poems, Karłowicz reveals what is hidden: tensions, emotions, and conflicts unfolding within the human soul. Bianca da Molena, derived from the prologue to a drama about a knight-errant, tells a story of tragic love and of a man torn between the past and his feelings. The protagonist arrives to fight for his rights, only to discover that the greatest battle is not fought on the battlefield but within himself. Love leads him to a decision that overturns the very purpose of his actions-he begins to fight against himself.

Returning Waves takes us even deeper into the inner world. Karłowicz himself described the emotions expressed in this work as the state of a person immersed in numbness, trapped in the monotony of everyday life, gazing at lifeless, icy landscapes. Then suddenly-like the waves of the title-memories return: bright moments of youth, visions of happiness, love, and passion. The past comes alive with extraordinary force, only to recede once more, leaving the individual in silence and solitude.

Both works, united by the theme of unfulfilled love, present Karłowicz as an artist who does not want us to stop at what is visible. What may appear cold, distant, or inaccessible on the surface is revealed in his music as a remarkably rich world-one filled with love, tension, mystery, and inner struggle. What matters most does not happen outside us; it happens within us. So the next time you encounter someone who seems reserved and restrained, it may be worth considering how rich their inner world might be.

Listen to selected excerpts from the concert programme:

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909), one of Poland’s most distinguished composers, experienced during his short life a remarkable chapter devoted to mountain exploration and photography – an achievement that secured his place in the history of both Polish mountaineering and photography. Although his interest in photography began in his youth, his greatest accomplishments in the medium came during the final three years of his life, between 1906 and 1909. Photography is also inextricably linked to his tragic death. In February 1909, he was killed by an avalanche beneath Mały Kościelec while on a ski expedition to test his newly purchased Globus camera with 13 × 18 cm plates – what today we would describe as a large-format camera.

It is impossible to determine how many photographs Karłowicz made during his lifetime. His earliest pictures were domestic scenes taken with an “automatic revolver” camera designed by Aleksander Karoly, capable of exposing twelve plates. Later, while living in Berlin, he used a miniature Pocket Kodak. From 1906 onwards he worked with a folding plate camera using 9 × 12 cm glass plates, fitted with a Zeiss Tessar lens and a Koilos shutter. It was with this camera that he created the photographs presented in this exhibition.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Photographs presents reproductions of photographs whose original negatives or prints have been preserved in the collection of the Central Mountain Tourism Centre of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) in Kraków. The exhibition features a selection from more than two hundred surviving photographs by the composer.

Presented at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, the exhibition builds upon the earlier project Chords of Light, which has been shown in cultural institutions across Poland since 2025. This new edition significantly expands that exhibition, presenting 77 photographs – more than twice the number included in previous versions. It has been prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of Karłowicz’s birth.

This concert has been designed as a clear musical arch, leading us from the beginning of Mieczysław Karłowicz’s artistic journey to its sudden and tragic end. Richard Strauss’s Don Juan, which opens the evening, may be seen as a symbol of the youthful stage of Karłowicz’s compositional output – his years of study in Berlin, his fascination with new music, and his search for a personal musical language. Strauss, his contemporary, was one of the composers Karłowicz admired most. He was impressed by Strauss’s scale, imagination, and bold orchestration. Karłowicz sought out his works, studied his scores, and consciously turned toward what was new and innovative.

The next two works bring us to the final period of his life. A Sorrowful Tale, Op. 13, completed in July 1908, is an exceptionally moving composition. Karłowicz did not provide a detailed programme for the work, yet his own comments clearly suggest that it portrays the psychology of a person facing an ultimate decision, engaged in an inner struggle between the desire to live and the growing urge to bring life to an end. The music unfolds slowly, in the dark and richly coloured sonorities of the orchestra, leading to a climax of immense expressive power.

Alongside this work stands An Episode at a Masquerade, a unique composition because it was left unfinished by Karłowicz and completed after his death by Grzegorz Fitelberg. Materials found in the composer’s room made it possible to reconstruct almost the entire conception of the piece. Fitelberg described the music as a picture of a swirling, festive masquerade crowd, within which a figure consumed by longing and passion searches among the revellers for someone who has been lost. When the person is finally found, the encounter brings no fulfilment. The words are spoken: “I do not know you...” A note written by Karłowicz himself in the margin of the score adds: “What is gone will not return.” The crowd carries them away once more, and the feeling remains unfulfilled.

The theme of A Sorrowful Tale later gave rise to various speculations and misunderstandings concerning the tragic end of the composer’s own life. Karłowicz’s friends firmly rejected such suggestions. They emphasised his inner discipline and sense of responsibility – it is difficult to imagine that a man of such character would deliberately leave unfinished a work on which he was actively engaged. They also pointed to his strong family ties. In the will he drew up on 14 November 1908, he left his estate to the Warsaw Music Society and excluded his mother, to whom he was deeply devoted. Had he been planning his premature death, the document would surely have taken a different form.

In this next concert of the festival devoted to Karłowicz’s symphonic music, the same themes return: transcendence and unfulfilled love. Karłowicz repeatedly revisited the same emotions and experiences, as if trying to understand them. He was drawn to what lies beyond everyday life – to feelings that refuse to fade and memories that keep returning.

Listen to selected excerpts from the concert programme:

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909), one of Poland’s most distinguished composers, experienced during his short life a remarkable chapter devoted to mountain exploration and photography – an achievement that secured his place in the history of both Polish mountaineering and photography. Although his interest in photography began in his youth, his greatest accomplishments in the medium came during the final three years of his life, between 1906 and 1909. Photography is also inextricably linked to his tragic death. In February 1909, he was killed by an avalanche beneath Mały Kościelec while on a ski expedition to test his newly purchased Globus camera with 13 × 18 cm plates – what today we would describe as a large-format camera.

It is impossible to determine how many photographs Karłowicz made during his lifetime. His earliest pictures were domestic scenes taken with an “automatic revolver” camera designed by Aleksander Karoly, capable of exposing twelve plates. Later, while living in Berlin, he used a miniature Pocket Kodak. From 1906 onwards he worked with a folding plate camera using 9 × 12 cm glass plates, fitted with a Zeiss Tessar lens and a Koilos shutter. It was with this camera that he created the photographs presented in this exhibition.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Photographs presents reproductions of photographs whose original negatives or prints have been preserved in the collection of the Central Mountain Tourism Centre of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) in Kraków. The exhibition features a selection from more than two hundred surviving photographs by the composer.

Presented at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, the exhibition builds upon the earlier project Chords of Light, which has been shown in cultural institutions across Poland since 2025. This new edition significantly expands that exhibition, presenting 77 photographs – more than twice the number included in previous versions. It has been prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of Karłowicz’s birth.

The Symphonic Monuments series presents encounters with the most important works of the orchestral repertoire-compositions that have become an enduring part of music history and remain landmarks in the concert experience of audiences around the world. Each event in the series combines a performance with an introductory talk, allowing listeners not only to hear a great work but also to gain a deeper understanding of it through its context, ideas, and inner dramaturgy.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Symphony Rebirth is one of the most important works of Polish symphonic music – a remarkable composition that combines personal experience with a universal story about the human condition. Karłowicz himself provided the symphony with a programme that guides us through successive stages of an inner journey: from doubt and emptiness, through awakening and struggle, to the recovery of strength and meaning.

The first movement begins in a profound atmosphere of melancholy. It is a portrait of loss – the collapse of youthful dreams and a sense of purpose. The soul wanders aimlessly, unable to find direction, immersed in sorrow and inertia. An aura of mourning and inner conflict hangs over everything.

In the second movement, light appears. From stagnation emerges the impulse of life, accompanied by a vision of happiness and harmony. It is a moment of relief, like a glimpse of hope. The world once again seems bright and full of possibility, though still not entirely real.

The third movement brings the abrupt collapse of this vision. Chaos, anxiety, and rebellion return. The illusion of happiness shatters, and the soul is thrown into a whirlwind of experiences, passions, and conflicting emotions. This is the most dramatic moment of the entire symphony – a confrontation with reality itself.

The finale leads to the overcoming of this state. The soul takes up the struggle and gradually regains its balance. Out of chaos emerges a new strength that leads to rebirth – not as a return to what once was, but as a new beginning, conscious and mature. The symphony concludes like a hymn, with music of triumph and inner peace.

Przemysław Neumann, Director of the Szczecin Philharmonic, will discuss how this work came into being, which of Karłowicz’s experiences are reflected in it, and how to interpret its extraordinary musical language. This is a unique opportunity to hear and understand the music of our institution’s patron as it is heard and understood by the orchestra that performs it regularly.

Listen to selected excerpts from the concert programme:

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909), one of Poland’s most distinguished composers, experienced during his short life a remarkable chapter devoted to mountain exploration and photography – an achievement that secured his place in the history of both Polish mountaineering and photography. Although his interest in photography began in his youth, his greatest accomplishments in the medium came during the final three years of his life, between 1906 and 1909. Photography is also inextricably linked to his tragic death. In February 1909, he was killed by an avalanche beneath Mały Kościelec while on a ski expedition to test his newly purchased Globus camera with 13 × 18 cm plates – what today we would describe as a large-format camera.

It is impossible to determine how many photographs Karłowicz made during his lifetime. His earliest pictures were domestic scenes taken with an “automatic revolver” camera designed by Aleksander Karoly, capable of exposing twelve plates. Later, while living in Berlin, he used a miniature Pocket Kodak. From 1906 onwards he worked with a folding plate camera using 9 × 12 cm glass plates, fitted with a Zeiss Tessar lens and a Koilos shutter. It was with this camera that he created the photographs presented in this exhibition.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Photographs presents reproductions of photographs whose original negatives or prints have been preserved in the collection of the Central Mountain Tourism Centre of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) in Kraków. The exhibition features a selection from more than two hundred surviving photographs by the composer.

Presented at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, the exhibition builds upon the earlier project Chords of Light, which has been shown in cultural institutions across Poland since 2025. This new edition significantly expands that exhibition, presenting 77 photographs – more than twice the number included in previous versions. It has been prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of Karłowicz’s birth.

This concert is devoted to one of the most profound and difficult human experiences: love that never finds fulfilment. In the music of Mieczysław Karłowicz, this theme returns time and again-as longing, as desire, as a yearning for something that remains forever unattainable.

We encounter this same emotional landscape in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Although the two composers never met, they belonged to the same generation and were creating their works at almost exactly the same time. Rachmaninoff completed his concerto in 1901, when Karłowicz was working on his first symphonic poems. In both cases, we hear a fascination with inner experience, with emotions concealed beneath the surface of events. Both composers were among those artists who sought the deepest truths not in the external world, but within the human soul.

In Karłowicz’s personal life, it is difficult to find the story of a fulfilled love. Neither his letters nor contemporary accounts mention a life partner, and themes of romance remain largely absent from his biography. All the more striking, then, is the prominence of love in his music-an emotion portrayed as unattainable, helpless, and ultimately tragic.

This is especially evident in the symphonic poem Stanisław and Anna Oświęcim, Op. 12. Karłowicz drew inspiration from the legend of a brother and sister who fell in love with one another, bound by a forbidden and impossible passion. Despite their attempts to overcome these feelings and a dramatic journey to Rome, which ended with permission for their union, the story concludes tragically. Death separates the lovers, and fulfilment becomes possible only beyond this world. Karłowicz first encountered the story in Kraków through a painting depicting Anna Oświęcim on her deathbed. The image made a profound impression on him and became the impulse for the creation of the work. To this day, the painting hangs in the Sukiennice Gallery.

The motif of love that remains unfulfilled yet overwhelmingly powerful recurs throughout Karłowicz’s music. It is present as an emotion that permeates his works and gives them their distinctive intensity. Perhaps this is why listeners so readily discover something deeply personal within them-something many of us, in our own way, recognise and understand.

This evening, therefore, is an invitation to listen closely to music that speaks of difficult and often hidden emotions. And perhaps it is precisely in this music-filled with longing and unfulfilled desires-that we may find not only their echo, but also a measure of consolation.

At the opening concert of the festival, we asked ourselves what it means to have Mieczysław Karłowicz as the patron of our Philharmonic. What was he seeking to express through his music, and what does his work say today to our concert community? Throughout the festival, we have searched for answers to these questions.

We discovered that, for Karłowicz, youth was not a matter of age but of courage-the courage to confront the world. We discovered that certain experiences return throughout life and become its recurring themes. We discovered that one of the most difficult human experiences is love that remains unfulfilled. We discovered that the most important emotions are never superficial but lie hidden deep beneath the surface, often invisible at first glance. And finally, we discovered that maturity does not free us from life’s essential questions; rather, it anchors them ever more deeply within us.

Yet these few threads, illuminating Karłowicz’s emotional world, do not exhaust its richness. There remains his work as an organiser of musical life, as a perceptive observer and critic. There remains his passion for the Tatra Mountains-his profound need for contact with nature, which made him one of the pioneers of mountaineering, skiing, and mountain photography. In a life that lasted only thirty-two years, he achieved an extraordinary intensity of experience and accomplishment.

For this reason, although the first edition of the festival has been remarkably rich and varied, it leaves us with the feeling that this is only the beginning-that Karłowicz’s story can be told for many years to come, each time through a different lens, revealing new perspectives on both his music and his life.
Listen to selected excerpts from the concert programme: