Symphony No. 3 (Szymanowski)

Symphony No. 3 Op. 27 (a.k.a. "The Song of the Night") is a symphony for orchestra, tenor and choir, composed by Karol Szymanowski during the period 1914 - 1916 after a period spent travelling in Eastern Europe. A purely instrumental version was first performed in London in late 1921. A full premier with soloist and choir had to wait until 3 February 1928, in Lvov.
The symphony is considered to be one of Szymanowski's finest works. The symphony is a musical setting of a poem by the 13th-century Persian mystic Jalal ud-Din Rumi translated by Polish poet and friend of composer Tadeusz Miciński, supposed to celebrate the exceptional beauty of the Eastern night.
A typical performance of the symphony lasts about 25 minutes.
Form.
The symphony is influenced by Richard Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" and Szymanowski derives from Frédéric Chopin's use of chromatic harmony as in his nocturnes to depict the character of night. Another influence is Alexander Scriabin's symphonic poem, "" from which the symphony derives a mystical aura, its one-movement symphonic design, its (partly) wordless chorus, the large orchestra, its climactic organ and its use of a piano (though not as a concertante instrument but rather as an extremely important textural element). A prominent feature of the work is the composer's formation of unique melodic voices moving independently of one another, in a manner which can be described as 'interwoven polymelody'.
The symphony is in one movement and normally takes around 25 minutes to perform. However, some recordings typically split the symphony into three unnumbered movements without a break between the first and second movements (attacca):
Instrumentation.
Szymanowski scored his symphony for a very large orchestra consisting of standard instruments, as well as unusual “instruments” (for a symphony) such as a solo tenor and an "ad lib" choir: