The most significant Polish symphonist of the Modern Age, Witold Lutoslawski was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1913- His family were part of the ziemeanstwo, a class of nobles who were granted land by the Polish kings. When he was a year old, his family fled their home, which was directly in the path of the advancing German military. They moved to Moscow, where Lutoslawski spent his first few years. By 1920 his family had returned to Poland, where Lutoslawski began his musical education on the piano and violin. At 15 he studied composition with the Polish composer Maliszewski, and then went on to study at the Warsaw Conservatory, graduating in piano in 1936 and composition in 1937.
After leaving the conservatory, Lutoslawski formed a piano duo with the Polish composer Panufnik, with whom he played in Warsaw cafés throughout World War II. During this time, Lutoslawski arranged and wrote many works for two pianos. Nearly all of these were lost during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (in which he fought). One piece that did survive was his Variations on a Theme of Paganini for two pianos, which has since become a standard work for this combination. After the war, in Communist Poland, composers were subject to censorship by the authorities, and Lutoslawski, among others, turned to folk music for uncontroversial material. His Concerto for Orchestra uses folk music of the region surrounding Warsaw. This work was performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra in 1954.
Lutoslawski supported himself by writing for the Polish radio, and he composed a large number of songs for children as well as incidental music for radio dramas. During his long musical career, Lutoslawski’s work evolved slowly but steadily. Funeral Music for string orchestra, written in 1958 in memory of BARTOK, was the first work to exploit the harmonic system in which he uses 12-tone serialism combined with particularly significant chords to give the piece internal coherence.
A major turning point came when Lutoslawski heard John CAGE’s piano concerto on the radio. This work uses chance procedures, and initiated Lutoslawski’s development of aleatory, or controlled, chance music. The technique he developed was used to achieve complexity of rhythm without causing difficulty for the performers, while maintaining total control over pitch and harmony. This happens by giving the performer set pitches and rhythms in any given passage as usual, the only difference being that he does not have to coordinate his part with the other players for a given amount of time. At a signal from the conductor, the players come together again for the next section.
This process was first used in the composition Venetian Games in 1961, and was further developed in the second, third, and fourth symphonies, in the string quartet, and in many other works.
This technique is only one part of Lutoslawski’s style: his growing interest in a very rich orchestration and other experimental techniques, such as the use of quartertones, set a limit on the amount of freedom he could build into his works. He has shown a particular interest in string timbre with his Cello Concerto (1970), written for the Russian Mstislav ROSTROPOVICH, and with the Preludes and Fugue for 13 strings (1972), in which he was able to explore the contrast between chamber and orchestral textures.
The composer became something of an ambassador for Polish music. He taught at Tangle wood in Massachusetts, at Dartington in the U.K., and at many other conservatories. He was also vice president of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM).
Extremely generous with his time, Lutoslawski would never refuse to look at the work of a young composer to whom he could offer advice. He died in 1994.
David Braid
SEE ALSO:
ALEATORY MUSIC; ORCHESTRAL MUSIC.
FURTHER READING
Stucky, Steven. Lutoslawski and His Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Cello Concerto; Funeral Music; Livre pour orchestre; Preludes and Fugue for 13 strings.