Witold Lutosławski
Lutoslawski was the leading progressive figure in Polish music of the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Warsaw, he showed an exceptional musical talent at an early age, with his first compositions dating from 1922. He studied piano, violin, and composition (with Witold Maliszewski, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov), graduating from the Warsaw Conservatory in 1937. Two years, at the beginning of World War II, Poland was occupied by the Nazi Germany; and Nazi repression included censorship on artistic expression. Lutoslawski survived the difficult war years as well as the subsequent Stalinist period by writing for radio, film, and theatre. In addition, he arranged folk-songs and composed music for children.
Considered too formalist, his concert music was rarely performed. His first substantial orchestral work, The Symphonic Variations was premiered in 1939. It is a work firmly rooted in tonality with a folk-like theme that is varied in a kaleidoscopic way. His first stylistic period culminated in the folk-influenced, three-movement Concerto for Orchestra (1954).
With the cultural thaw which started in the late '50s, his reputation began to grow, at home and abroad, as did his compositional style, with twelve-tone techniques appearing in Funeral Music (1958). In this work, Lutoslawski continually resolves ascending scales with semi-tone intervals that tend to anchor tonal centers within keyless regions. In Jeux Vénitiens (1961), Lutoslawski took his first step into a "limited aleatory music" -- after hearing a performance of John Cage's Concerto for Piano in 1960. Lutoslawski's elegant String Quartet (1964) utilizes four rhythmically independent strands simultaneously, yielding wonderfully dense and elastic textures. In the Live pour orchestra (1968) the work's four main sections are connected by controlled aleatory passages. Most of his subsequent works were orchestral, fully chromatic, orchestrated in a manner suggesting Debussy and Ravel, and consistently develop an opposition between aleatory and metrical textures. Lutoslawski went on to compose nearly twenty major orchestral works, including Symphony No. 3 (1982), for which he was awarded the prestigious Grawemeyer Award, and his final Symphony No. 4 (1992), commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
He also composed works for distinguished soloists, such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, (&Les espaces du sommeil), Heinz and Ursula Holliger (Concerto for Oboe and Harp), Anne-Sophie Mutter, Chain II, Mstislav Rostropovich (cello concerto), and Krystian Zimmerman (Piano Concerto). Lutoslawski's extensive experience conducting his own works helped him to refine his musical language, his later works becoming more lyrical and harmonically transparent.
© TiVo
Discography
10 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Strawinsky: Violin Concerto / Lutoslawski: Partita; Chain 2
Anne-Sophie Mutter, Phillip Moll, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Witold Lutosławski, Paul Sacher
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1988
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lutoslawski: Piano Concerto; Partita; Chain 2
Anne-Sophie Mutter, Krystian Zimerman, Phillip Moll, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Witold Lutosławski
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 18 Mar 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lutoslawski: Partita; Chain 2 & 3; Novelette
Anne-Sophie Mutter, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Witold Lutosławski
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lutoslawski: Cello Concerto; Concerto For Oboe & Harp; Dance Preludes
Witold Lutosławski, Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1987
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Witold Lutoslawski : Piano Concerto, Chain 3...
Krystian Zimerman, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Witold Lutosławski
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1992
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lutoslawski: Symphony No. 3; Les espaces du sommeil
Witold Lutosławski, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Berliner Philharmoniker
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1986
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lutoslawski - Great Recordings
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 4 Feb 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Witold Lutoslawski: Symphony No.3
Berliner Philharmoniker, Witold Lutosławski
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 28 Jan 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Witold Lutoslawski : Dernier Concert
Fujiko Imajishi, Valdine Anderson, New Music Concerts, Witold Lutosławski
Classical - Released by Naxos on 6 Oct 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lutoslawski at the Guildhall, Vol. 1
Guildhall Symphony Orchestra, Louise Hopkins, Witold Lutosławski, Wojciech Michniewski
Classical - Released by SOMM Recordings on 1 Feb 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo