Witold Lutosławski

He graduated with a degree in piano and composition from the Warsaw Conservatory where he studied with Jerzy Lefeld and Witold Maliszewski (1936–37). He was a member of the board (1959–65) and later vice-president (until 1969) of the International Society of Contemporary Music. He lectured at European and American schools of music as well as at courses for composers. As one of the most outstanding of contemporary composers, he was elected an honorary member of the iscm and a member of several academies (the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, the Freie Akademie der Künste in Hamburg, the Deutsche Akademie der Künste, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the Académie Européenne des Arts et des Lettres, the Académie Européenne des Sciences). He was also an honorary member of the Polish Composers’ Union and the British Association of Professional Composers. He held honorary doctorate degrees from Warsaw University, the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Lancaster University, Glasgow University, Durham University, Queen’s University, Belfast, Cleveland Institute of Music and McGill University in Montreal. He received numerous artistic awards, including those of the Polish Composers’ Union annual awards for 1959 and 1973, the Minister of Culture and Art, First Class (1962), State Award, First Class (1964 and 1978), the Award of International Music Council (1963, 1985), as well as the Koussevitzky Award (1964), the Herder Award (1967), the Sonning Prize (1967), the Ravel Award (1971), the Sibelius Award (1973), the Ernst von Siemens Award (1983), the ‘Solidarity’ Award (1984), the Grawemeyer Award (1985), unesco Award (1985), the Queen Sophie Award (1985), the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London (1985), the Koussevitzky International Record Award (1986), the Gold Medal and the title of the Musician of the Year (1991) of the British Incorporated Society of Musicians, the medal of the Stockholm Concert Hall Foundation at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic (1992), the Polar Music Prize (1993), and the Kyoto Prize (1993). The Order of the White Eagle was conferred on Witold Lutosławski in 1994.

Selected works: Symphonic Variations (1938), Variations on a Theme by Paganini for two pianos (1941), First Symphony (1947), Overture for String Orchestra (1949), Concerto for Orchestra (1954), Dance Preludes for clarinet and chamber orchestra (1955), Five Songs for female voice and 30 solo instruments, set to poems by Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna (1958), Funeral Music for string orchestra (1958), Three Postludes for orchestra (1958–60), Jeux vénitiens for orchestra (1961), Trois po?mes d’Henri Michaux for 20-part choir and chamber orchestra (1963), String Quartet (1964), Paroles tissées for tenor and chamber orchestra (1965), Second Symphony (1966–67), Livre pour orchestre (1968), Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (1970), Preludes and Fugue for 13 solo strings (1972), Les espaces du sommeil for baritone and orchestra (1973), Sacher Variation for solo cello (1975), Mi-parti for orchestra (1979), Novelette for orchestra (1979), Epitaph for oboe and piano (1979), Double Concerto for Oboe, Harp and Chamber Orchestra (1980), Grave
for cello and piano (1981), Third Symphony (1983), Chain 1 for chamber orchestra (1983), Partita for violin and piano (1984), Chain 2 for violin and orchestra (1985), 17 Polish Christmas Carols for female choir, soprano and chamber orchestra (1985), Chain 3 for orchestra (1986), Piano Concerto (1988), Partita, version for violin and orchestra (1988), Slides for chamber ensemble (1988), Interlude for orchestra (1989), Chantefleurs et Chantefables for soprano and orchestra (1991), Fourth Symphony (1992), Subito for violin and piano (1993).

Overture for Strings was written in 1949. It was dedicated to Mirko Očadlik and was premiered on 9 November 1949 in Prague by the Symphony Orchestra of Prague Radio, conducted by Grzegorz Fitelberg. The work stems from the tradition created by Paul Sacher and his series of commissions for the Chamber Orchestra of Basel, which included Béla Bartók’s Divertimento and Igor Stravinsky’s Concerto in Re. In the 1930s, the chamber string orchestra became one of the most popular forms of 20th-century music, mostly (though not only) neo-classical or referring to the neo-classical tradition. Even though remaining in the shadow of the First Symphony (completed in 1947) and the Concerto for Orchestra (1954), the Overture is in many respects Lutosławski’s most interesting piece, prior to Funeral Music. The work exhibits broadly-conceived neo-classical features, evoking associations with the scores of Albert Roussel on the one hand and of Béla Bartók on the other. Yet it is in many ways a taster of things to come in Lutosławski’s music of later years, after Funeral Music, and even after Jeux vénitiens, in other works in the music of ‘Lutosławski proper’. It can be said that in the Overture Lutosławski used for the first time his characteristic ‘chain’ technique, consisting in the overlapping of various elements and their gradual substitution.
This short, 5-minute piece is a lucid sonata allegro (with a reversed recapitulation). Its lucidity, however, does not contradict the real profusion of intricate compositional devices it employs. The impression is as if the composer wished to create a superabundant symphonic aphorism without losing the remnants of the neo-classical tradition. Superabundant, because there are more form-shaping elements than it is necessary; aphorism, because they are all used very sparingly, and yet the piece does not seem to be ascetic. It is based on three thematic ideas characterised by distinct motivic structures.
A new theme appears towards the end of the development. The integral character of the whole design is enhanced by the repetition of the three themes in the recapitulation in reverse order, as well as their partly contrapuntal presentation in the development. While forming an unity, the themes differ quite considerably from one another. The first theme fills the twelve-note spectrum with four-note motives derived from two eight-note scales. The melodic line of these motives brings Bartók to mind, the manner of their presentation is reminiscent of Webern, while their shape is a harbinger of Lutosław-ski’s motivic work of the 1960s. The second theme, which also focuses on an eight-note scale (even though it has elements of modal thinking), can be regarded as Lutosławski’s first attempt to forge
a harmonic idiom which will come to the fore in Funeral Music. Only the third theme, on account of its motoric vigour, takes pride in its typically neo-classical roots. It is also worth paying attention to Lutosławski’s ‘aside’ at the end of the recapitulation, which is a ghosted reference to the missing slow section. In a striking way, it exhibits
a flavour reminiscent of the adagio episodes in Lutosławski’s music of the 1980s. Listening to the Overture for Strings today one may have the impression that it directly precedes Funeral Music and Jeux vénitiens, the two pieces which are of paramount importance in Lutosławski’s oeuvre. Written after completing the First Symphony (1947) and before commencing work on the Concerto for Orchestra (1950), in a year of the official proclamation of socialist realism in Poland (1949), the Overture for Strings does not have the character of functional music, which is evident in the Little Suite (1950) and the Silesian Triptych (1951).