In 1920, after the first concert of his music in a newly independent Poland, Szymanowski wrote the following: ‘I do feel, where Polish culture is concerned, that I am in a vacuum. But I cannot afford a complete abnegation, for my inner life is developed too strongly’. The concert took place at an important turning-point in his development, and the adverse critical reception which greeted it brought into sharp focus a creative crisis which had been with the composer since 1918. It is an interpretation of that crisis which I intend to offer in this paper.