The Polish composer Karol Szymanowskiwas born in the Ukraine, once part of the kingdom of Poland, but studied in Warsaw, much influenced by Chopin and then by Wagner, Richard Strauss, Brahms and Reger. From a well-to-do and cultured family, he read widely, particularly during the years of war, from 1914 to 1917, when he remained on the family estate in the Ukraine, a property destroyed in the civil war. The breadth of his cultural knowledge is reflected in his music and in particular in his settings of literary texts of one kind or another. Musically he is able at times to draw on specifically Polish material, coupled with his own perceptions of Arabic and Persian culture.