Catalogue raisonné
- Prelude for piano (1922)
- Small pieces for piano (1923-1926)
- Lullaby in E major for piano (1926)
- Three Preludes for piano (1927)
- Sonata for violin and piano no. 1 (1928)
- Sonata for violin and piano no. 2 (1928)
- Poème for piano (1928)
- Variations for piano (1929)
- Dance of the Chimera for piano (1930)
- Scherzo for orchestra (1930)
- Haroun al Rashid for orchestra (1931)
- Water-Nymph i Linden Lullaby for voice and piano (1934)
- Music for three educational films Fire, Beware!, Short-circuit (1935-1937)
- Double Fugue for orchestra (1936)
- Prelude and aria for piano (1936)
- Requiem aeternam for choir and orchestra (1937)
Hymn of the Pupils of the Stefan Batory Gymnasium
Orchestration: choir
Year composed: 1930-1931
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| words: | Stanisław Młodożeniec |
| orchestration: | choir |
| year composed: | 1930-1931 |
| year published: | 1931 |
| edition: | Pochodem idziemy: dzieje i legenda Szkoły im. S. Batorego (Warszawa 1983) |
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| orchestration: | piano |
| year composed: | 1934 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Wilno |
| date: | 1934 |
| soloists: | Witold Lutosławski |
| edition: | PWM |
The Piano Sonata serves as sole testimony to Lutosławski’s first completely successful compositional activities. He was fascinated by the sonic world of the impressionists, so different from the – as he called it – “abused tonality” popular at the time. And so he composed a work in which the quality of musical colour comes to the fore. We do not find here many symmetrically constructed themes with a rhythmic clarity and unequivocal tonal references. Instead, Lutosławski revels in the colours of the piano’s sounds, very gracefully shading the dynamics, dispersing the texture, and finding much pleasure in obscuring the rhythmic pulse.
Although the influence of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are to be clearly heard, the three-movement Sonata is strongly rooted in the past schemata of musical architecture.
Let us take for example the first movement – Allegro. It is an almost classically conducted sonata allegro form, whose tonal orbit is marked out by the b flat minor and D flat major chords. An accumulation of broken vertical sonorities, whose components create further layers of musical colour, anticipates the characteristic orchestral texture of Lutosławski’s later works. The middle movement – Adagio ma non troppo, harmonically weaved around the f minor chord, distinguishes itself first by clearly lead phrases. However, sonic formations of rhythmic clarity quickly give way to a shimmering texture, remembered from the initial movement. The greatest motivic (and agogic) variegation is probably found in the final movement. This movement is composed of three fragments, which again enhance the particular polyphony of musical colours.
They contrast with each other in material, yet remain unified in the tonal axis of the b flat minor and D flat major chords. Repeated fragments, skillfully subjected to transformations by the composer, simultaneously tie in to the first movement of the Sonata. The composition thus gains in homogeneity, which becomes a value present in Lutosławski’s future masterworks.
In one of the composition adept’s first works – which nonetheless demands ample technical dexterity and sensitivity to musical colour – the lack of references to the music of Fryderyk Chopin, an icon of European pianistics, makes us think. Perhaps the only testimony to the possible influence of the great Pole is the ability to display an immensely wide array of musical colours. However, even with this element Lutosławski seems to turn more toward the music of Karol Szymanowski.
Besides, what may have been symbolic was the fact that both composers met in 1935 in Riga, specifically at the occasion of Lutosławski’s performance of his Sonata at the Conservatory.
The work was heard for the first time in Warsaw in a premiere given by Witold Lutosławski. Although later the composer did not hide his critical stance toward the youthful piece, one cannot deny that the Sonata, which survived the wartime turmoil, constitutes a historical testimony to the consistent development of its creator.
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| orchestration: | soprano and orchestra |
| sop solo-2323-4301-tmp-coro (SATB)-archi | |
| year composed: | 1937 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Warszawa |
| date: | IX 1938 |
| orchestra: | Orkiestra Filharmonii Warszawskiej |
| conductor: | Tadeusz Wilczak |
| soloists: | Helena Warpechowska |
| edition: | PWM Chester Music |
| orchestration: | soprano and organ |
| year composed: | 1937 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Warszawa |
| date: | 16 II 1994 |
| edition: | PWM |
| orchestration: | orchestra |
| 2(1picc)3(1ci)3(1clb)3(1cfg), 4331, timp, batt, cel, ar, pf, archi | |
| year composed: | 1936-1938 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Kraków |
| date: | 17 VI 1939 |
| orchestra: | Narodowa Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia |
| conductor: | Grzegorz Fitelberg |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| listen | |
The Symphonic Variations, composed in 1938, received their premiere on March 1939 in a broadcast of the Polish Radio in Warsaw, and were again performed on April 17 of the same year at Wawel, the historical Royal residence in Cracow, during the World Music Days Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music that took place in Poland. In both cases, the Symphonic Orchestra of the Polish Radio in Warsaw (formerly the Great Symphony Orchestra of the Polish Radio in Katowice, and presently the National Symphony Orchestra of the Polish Radio) was conducted by Grzegorz Fitelberg. The Variations were the first piece composed by Witold Lutosławski directly after completion of his studies under Witold Maliszewski in the Warsaw Conservatory.
As basis for the Variations the composer uses a tonal (extended key of B major) theme of 10 measures, after the exposition of which one can formally distinguish a series of unnumbered variations presented in a continuous manner in the score, as well as a final coda - fugato (Allegro ma non troppo), yet the entire composition gives the impression of a structurally unified whole, a reason why its commentators indicate a disparate number of perceived variations (Krzysztof Meyer - 12, Tadeusz A. Zieliński - 8).
The employed variational change does not consist of a marked difference in tempos (fast and slow variations do not contrast with each other, but are grouped: the first is slow, the next four are fast, and the two final ones are slow), relying instead on transformations in the melodic and rhythmic motives, but even more in the phenomena of musical timbre. In such an approach to variational technique one may point out certain (external) analogies with the idea of ‘developing variation' from the school of Arnold Schönberg; furthermore, in the polychordal harmony and industrious ostinatos one hears the echoes of an early Igor Stravinsky and in the musical colour those of Maurice Ravel, while in the contrapuntal technique one finds a foreshadowing of the Symphony no. 1, and even Funeral Music of Lutosławski himself.
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| orchestration: | piano |
| year composed: | 1941 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | nr 1 Kraków |
| date: | 26 I 1948 |
| soloists: | Maria Bilińska-Riegerowa |
| edition: | PWM, PWM(2), PWM(3), Chester Music |
| orchestration: | 2 pianos |
| year composed: | 1941 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Warszawa |
| date: | 1941 |
| soloists: | Andrzej Panufnik, Witold Lutosławski |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| orchestration: | piano and orchestra |
| pf solo-2(1 picc)3 (1 ci)22(1 cfg), 4331, batt (3), ar, archi | |
| dedicated to: | Felicja Blumental |
| year composed: | 1977-1978 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Miami |
| date: | 18 XI 1979 |
| orchestra: | Florida Philharmonic Orchestra |
| conductor: | Brian Priestman |
| soloists: | Felicja Blumental |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| transcription by: | Marta Ptaszyńska |
| orchestration: | two pianos and percussion |
| edition: | PWM |
Variations on a Theme by Paganini (more precisely, transcriptions of Nicolò Paganini's twelve variations on the theme of his own Caprice no. 24 in A minor for violin solo) were created in 1941 in a version for two pianos and were premiered in the same year by their composer with Andrzej Panufnik at Aria cafe in the occupied Warsaw. An authored version for piano and orchestra has been prepared on the initiative of the Polish-American pianist and harpsichordist Felicja Blumenthal in 1978.
In the Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Lutosławski made a living for himself and his mother by playing the piano at cafes, most frequently at Art and Fashion, but also Aria, At the Actresses', and sporadically the Salon of Art, the latter having been run by the pianist and composer Bolesław Woytowicz. Occasionally, Lutosławski accompanied an ensemble in the style of The Revelers, namely the choir Dana, still popular before World War II, and took part in the rare, sometimes official, but usually secret concerts in private apartments. In the years 1940-1944 he regularly played in a piano duo with Andrzej Panufnik. The duo Lutosławski-Panufnik prepared a repertoire of nearly 200 pieces: arrangements of classical music from Bach to Brahms and Tchaikovsky, and even Stravinsky, as well as traditional jazz motives, among all of which found itself an authored arrangement of the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun by Debussy. This collection also included a transcribed version of Paganini's Caprice no. 24 in A minor prepared by Witold Lutosławski and played frequently at Aria cafe and other establishments. As a side note, Panufnik never claimed to have participated in the composition of this piece. From the entire collection of the Lutosławski-Panufnik duo, only the sheet music to the Variations avoided destruction in the Warsaw Uprising.
The theme and its 11 variations with a finale that make up the entire composition by Nicolò Paganini remained untouched as to their structure, but Lutosławski rendered his version with an extraordinary, virtuosic bravado that basically engages the original in a competition. This bravado makes itself apparent through the fact that no matter how varied the types of performance technique applied in Paganini's solo violin composition, they become transferred with great finesse to the effect of the two pianos, creating a ‘counterpoint' of that which in its timbral essence remains violinistic, and that which is pianistic. In the orchestral version we are dealing with a masterly operation, and even a juggling of three textures - violinistic, pianistic, and orchestral - assigned either alternately, or in counterpoint to the solo instrument and orchestral instruments or their groups. In the version for two pianos, the retained principle of an alternating exchange of melodic and harmonic material between both instruments slightly lengthens the duration of the piece when performed by one piano with orchestra - which results from a partially implemented, successive linking of musical portions played simultaneously by both instruments in the version for both pianos - but in turn significantly enriches the piece in the orchestral version through the qualities of musical colour.
In keeping with the original, the Variations are tonal, but Lutosławski overlays the diatonic scaffolding with chromaticism and technical solutions sometimes unknown to Paganini, such as the polytonality of the third variation. The variations themselves are simultaneously etude-like, which is a source of not only their expressional, but also purely articulative contrast in the types of motion and various formulas of pianistic technique, such as pizzicato, tremolo, the use of parallel chords, passages, scales, glissandos, and other devices. They naturally connect with the expressional composition of the cycle, something that is perhaps most clear in the sixth variation, marked Poco lento (also the strongest agogic contrast in the entire cycle, the latter being maintained in fast tempos, in keeping with the original model). In this variation the mutually divergent scales in both pianos are played dolcissimo molto legato, only to give way in a maximal contrast of expression to the Allegro molto of the seventh variation.
The piano part grows out of the finest virtuosic models from the musical line of Liszt, Busoni, and Rachmaninoff, at the same time becoming enriched by the experience of Bartók and - to an extent - Prokofiev, while the orchestral part owes it lustre to the Neoclassical vitalism being seasoned with elements of timbre and articulation originating not only in Ravel's use of the orchestra, but also in the references made in twentieth-century scores to folklorism and the contemporary orchestra's sonoristic, timbral and articulation palette. As to its harmony, the piece naturally relies on the A minor original, in relation to which the chordal textures, not having much in common with major-minor tonality, become a type of atonal and purely timbre-oriented variation that imbues the entire work with an almost piquant flavour. Contrast to the perpetual vigore spirit maintained in allegro is introduced solely by the aforementioned, lyrical and cantilena-like sixth variation (poco lento), in which one may discern an allusion to the musical poetry of Karol Szymanowski. This contrasting variant in the centre of the cycle and a passage-based, mini cadence of the piano in the closing of the final variation create a purely external allusion to the form of a miniature piano concerto.
Music for chamber orchestra in Witold Lutosławski's oeuvre is an extraordinarily interesting domain; in it as an area somewhere between the extended chamber music writing and prolegomenon to symphonic style an especially intriguing aesthetic play is being carried on, and one whose significance is fundamental to the musical poetry of Lutosławski. This significance results from the fact that Lutosławski's chamber output is rather modest (though it is difficult to consider the entirety of his achievements while omitting the String Quartet and Epitaph for oboe and piano), yet the spirit of chamber performance is present in an intensive form in the composer's symphonic scores, which constitute the crux of his compositional legacy. Viewing the compositions for string orchestra in this perspective is a valuable exercise.
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| orchestration: | voice and piano |
| year composed: | 1942-1944 |
| edition: | PWM 1948 |
| nr 1 | |
| orchestration: | choir |
| year composed: | 1951 |
| edition: | PWM 1951 |
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| orchestration: | oboe, clarinet, bassoon |
| year composed: | 1944-1945 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Kraków |
| date: | IX 1945 |
| edition: | PWM |
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| orchestration: | piano |
| year composed: | 1945 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Kraków |
| date: | 1947 |
| edition: | PWM, PWM(2), PWM(3), Chester Music |
| Five Folk Songs (nr 1, 2, 10, 11, 12) | |
| orchestration: | string orchestra |
| year composed: | 1952 |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| Four Folk Songs (nr 9-12) | |
| orchestration: | 4 violins |
| year composed: | 1954 |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| Transcription for guitar | |
| transcription by: | Jose de Azpiazu, Raymond Burley |
| orchestration: | guitar |
| edition: | PWM, PWM(2) |
| words: | Aleksander Maliszewski |
| orchestration: | voice, choir and instrumental ensemble |
| year composed: | 1945 |
| year published: | 1946 |
| edition: | Czytelnik |
| orchestration: | voice and piano |
| year composed: | 1946 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | nr 11, 15, 17, 18, 20: Kraków |
| date: | I 1947 |
| soloists: | Aniela Szlemińska, Józef Hofmann |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| orchestration: | soprano, female choir and chamber orchestra |
| sop solo, coro femminile ad unisono, 11(ci)2(1 clb)1,2110, batt, ar, pf, archi | |
| year composed: | 1984-1989 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | nr 1-17: Londyn |
| date: | 5 XII 1985 |
| orchestra: | London Sinfonietta Orchestra and Chorus |
| conductor: | Witold Lutosławski |
| soloists: | Marie Slorach |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
Lutosławski cherished a long and fruitful collaboration with the radio. It was the only place where he had a regular post (soon after the WWII). He composed 77 musical illustrations to radio plays (1946-1960).
Lutosławski composed music for the theatres for quite a long time after the WWII. He co-operated on regular basis with the Polish Theatre. Among the National Library’s collection there are fragments of music for The Cid, Fantazy, The Merry Wives of Windsor, God, Emperor, and Peasant, and in the Archive of Polish Composers of the 20th Century in the Warsaw University Library his music for Horsztyński, Lorenzaccio and The Madwoman of Chaillot. Other scores are kept in the Paul Sacher Foundation. Lutosławski made his first attempt to write music for the theatre as early as 1930 (Haroun al Rashid), but the score was lost.
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| orchestration: | orchestra |
| 2(1picc)3(1ci)3(1picc, 2clb)3(1cfg), 4331, timp, batt, cel, ar, pf, archi | |
| dedicated to: | Grzegorz Fitelberg |
| year composed: | 1941-1947 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Katowice |
| date: | 6 IV 1948 |
| orchestra: | Narodowa Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia |
| conductor: | Grzegorz Fitelberg |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| listen | |
Symphony No. 1 was composed between 1941 and 1947. It comprises four movements: 1. Allegro giusto, 2. Poco adagio, 3. Allegretto misterioso, 4. Finale – Allegro vivace. It was first performed in Katowice on April 6, 1948, by the Polish Radio Grand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Grzegorz Filtelberg. Subsequent performances took place the same year in Cracow and then in Warsaw. It was a very fateful year for the arts in Soviet Bloc countries. At the Congresses of Composers in Moscow and in Prague the principles of socialist realism were announced. A new term entered the political-aesthetic vocabulary – that of “formalist” music, which was supposedly harmful to communist society. Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 1 was one of the first musical works in Poland to be labelled “formalist”.
The piece was written during the Second World War and completed just after the end of the war. The composer said that the character of the work was “cheerful, as that was the original conception from the period of independence, before the war, even though it was developed during the terrible time of war and in the far-from-idyllic post-war period.”
As Lutosławski commented: “Those were the times when, among most orchestral musicians, a sequence of 3/4 and 5/8 time was deemed an unnecessary oddity, and a chord containing more than five different notes (and – God forbid – more than one minor interval) was seen as unbearable torture to the performer’s ear. It is easy to guess the reaction of the orchestra during the first rehearsals of my symphony. I had a vague sense that instead of the long awaited satisfaction, I was going to experience severe and unfamiliar distress. But nevertheless… After countless rehearsals, the orchestra, perhaps yielding to Fitelberg’s unwavering conviction, reached exceptional precision in performing my score.” “I don’t treat Symphony No. 1 with disdain. It was, however, a piece that did not herald anything for the future, there was nothing that I could develop further.”
The first movement takes the form of a sonata allegro, with shifting motifs and sequences of fast-changing chords as the first theme and a canon-like imitation of extensively developed melody lines as the second theme. Aesthetically, the music is close to Symphonic Variations, and some harmonic similarity to Igor Stravinsky’s music can also be observed. In a discussion about the adagio (second) movement, the English monographer of Lutosławski’s work, Charles Bodman Rae, points out that the piece is inspired by the music of three composers. The initial melody evokes the chromatism of Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta; the horn part is reminiscent of the slow movement of Albert Roussel’s Symphony No. 3; and the second theme is supposedly an allusion (through the parody of a march in the oboe part) to Sergei Prokofiev. The third movement is a loose scherzo with a trio (with no literal repetitions). The melody line in the bass register of the strings introduces a twelve-tone row pizzicato: its second six-note chord is an inversion of the first six-note chord, transposed upwards by a minor interval. The timbre of this movement is exceptionally interesting – the sophisticated combinations of instrumental timbres seem to herald the style and technique of sonorism. The final Allegro is described by Charles Bodman Rae as an expressive formal sequence of build-up–climax–resolution–abatement–coda and cadence in D major.
Although the symphony ends in D major, as a whole it is atonal or – to put it differently – post(pan)tonal. In no way does it refer to any inspiration coming from folk music and it does not introduce functional or popular elements, which would soon become characteristic features of Lutosławski’s music right up to Concerto for Orchestra. Stylistically, the work can be classified as formal neoclassicism with modernist textural ambitions.
Krzysztof Meyer wrote of the piece: “Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 1, although undoubtedly the most serious since the times of Szymanowski, could not compare with other symphonies composed in the 1940s – those of Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Honegger. It lacked both a fully shaped individuality and technical mastery. It was, however, a well-written work, which could have played an important role in Polish music at the beginning of the 1950s. It could not do so for political reasons, and when it was finally allowed to enter the musical stage, its time had already passed.”
ach / trans. mkThe Overdue Nightingale, About Mr. Tralaliński
Orchestration: voice and piano
Year composed: 1947
More| words: | Julian Tuwim |
| orchestration: | voice and piano |
| year composed: | 1947 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Kraków |
| date: | 26 I 1948 |
| soloists: | Irena Wiskida, Jadwiga Szamotulska |
| edition: | PWM |
| orchestration: | voice and chamber orchestra |
| canto solo, 2222, 4330, batt(2), cel, archi | |
| year composed: | 1952 |
| about premiere | |
| orchestra: | Orkiestra Polskiego Radia |
| conductor: | Stefan Rachoń |
| soloists: | Maria Drewniakówna |
| edition: | PWM |
| words: | Julian Tuwim |
| orchestration: | voice and piano |
| year composed: | 1947 |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| orchestration: | mezzo soprano and orchestra |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| orchestration: | voice and instrumental ensemble |
| year composed: | 1952 |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| nr 2 & 4 | |
| orchestration: | voice and string orchestra |
| year composed: | 1952 |
| edition: | PWM 1973 |
| words: | A. Puszkin |
| orchestration: | voice and piano |
| year composed: | 1949 |
| awards: | Nagroda na konkursie kompozytorskim z okazji 150 rocznicy urodzin Aleksandra Puszkina (1949) |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Kraków |
| date: | 26 IX 1950 |
| soloists: | Lesław Finze |
| edition: | PWM 1950 |
| orchestration: | string orchestra |
| dedicated to: | Mirko Očadlik |
| year composed: | 1949 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Praga |
| date: | 9 XI 1949 |
| orchestra: | Orkiestra Symfoniczna Praskiego Radia |
| conductor: | Grzegorz Fitelberg |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| listen | |
Music for chamber orchestra in Witold Lutosławski's oeuvre is an extraordinarily interesting domain; in it as an area somewhere between the extended chamber music writing and prolegomenon to symphonic style an especially intriguing aesthetic play is being carried on, and one whose significance is fundamental to the musical poetry of Lutosławski. This significance results from the fact that Lutosławski's chamber output is rather modest (though it is difficult to consider the entirety of his achievements while omitting the String Quartet and Epitaph for oboe and piano), yet the spirit of chamber performance is present in an intensive form in the composer's symphonic scores, which constitute the crux of his compositional legacy. Viewing the compositions for string orchestra in this perspective is a valuable exercise.
The Overture for Strings was created in 1949. Dedicated to Mirko Očadlik (the director of Prague's radio orchestra), the piece received its premiere in the Czechoslovakian capital on November 9, 1949, with the Symphony Orchestra of the Prague Radio conducted by Grzegorz Fitelberg. This composition grows out of the tradition created by Paul Sacher and his series of commissions for the Basel Chamber Orchestra, with Bela Bartók's Divertimento and Igor Stravinsky's Concert in Re at the forefront. Beginning with the 1930s, the chamber string orchestra became one of the twentieth century's most popular formations, and one that was not exclusively, but mainly Neoclassical or in some way referring to Neoclassicism. While the Overture remained in the shadow of the Symphony no. 1 and the Concerto for Orchestra, it variously foreshadowed the changes in Lutosławski's music after the composition of his Funeral Music, or even the Venetian Games, i.e. in the music of ‘Lutosławski proper'. One may come to the conclusion that in the Overture the composer uses for the first time his ‘chain' technique, which relies on the dovetailing of various musical elements and their gradual replacement, an effect particularly characteristic of his later music.
This short, five-minute piece is in clear sonata allegro form (featuring a reversed recapitulation), but its clarity does not contradict the richness of elaborate detail in the employed compositional technique; it is as if the composer desired to create a super-complete symphonic aphorism, while not altogether eschewing the Neoclassical tradition (Grzegorz Fitelberg compared this composition to a "miniature human conserved in formalin"). We have used the term ‘super-complete' because the number of elements employed is greater than necessary for the completion of this form; and ‘aphorism', because of the extraordinary economy in the use of those elements. However, in respect to the latter, the piece does not create the impression of asceticism.
As a whole the composition rests upon three thematic ideas marked by clear motivic structures; moreover, the recapitulation adds one more theme. The impression of an integral unity of this construction is amplified by the reverse order of the themes in the recapitulation, and their partially contrapuntal presentation in the development. Although the themes create a sense of unity, they differ amongst each other in a decisive manner. The first relies on the filling out of a 12-tone spectrum with four-note motives derived from two eight-note scales. In their melodic outline these motives recall Bartók, and in their manner of presentation, Webern, while their shape foreshadows Lutosławski's motivic design of the 60s. The second theme, which also presents an eight-note scale (testifying in turn to modal thinking), can be regarded as an attempt to create the type of harmony that will be fully voiced in the composer's Funeral Music. Only in the third theme do we find characteristics that boast a Neoclassical typicality, owing much to its industrious vigour. What also deserves close attention is the aforementioned ‘side idea' near the end of the recapitulation - a trace after the absent slow movement, surprisingly sounding the adagio note of Lutosławski's episodes from his music of the 80s.
When listening today to the Overture for Strings one may come to the conclusion that artistically it directly precedes Funeral Music and Venetian Games, works of principal importance in the creative output of Witold Lutosławski. Written after the completion of the Symphony no. 1 (1947) and before the commencement of work on the Concerto for Orchestra (1950), in the official year of Poland's proclamation of social realism (1949), it does not have the character of functional music - as do Lutosławski's subsequent pieces, with the Little Suite (1950) and Silesian Triptych (1951) at the forefront.
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| orchestration: | chamber orchestra |
| year composed: | 1950 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Warszawa |
| date: | 1950 |
| orchestra: | Orkiestra Polskiego Radia |
| conductor: | Jerzy Kołaczkowski |
| edition: | PWM |
| orchestration: | orchestra |
| 2(1 picc)222, 4331, timp, batt, archi | |
| year composed: | 1951 |
| about premiere | |
| location: | Warszawa |
| date: | 20 IV 1951 |
| orchestra: | Narodowa Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia |
| conductor: | Grzegorz Fitelberg |
| edition: | PWM, Chester Music |
| listen | |
In 1950 Witold Lutosłąwski accepted a commission by the musical director of the Polish Radio in Warsaw, Roman Jasiński, for a piece destined for the Orchestra of the Polish Radio, which specialized in popular and folkloristic repertoire. This is how the story of the Little Suite for chamber orchestra begins, a piece which was recorded later in the same year for the purposes of a radio broadcast by the Orchestra of the Polish Radio under Jerzy Kołaczkowski. In the following year the chamber version was orchestrated for symphonic performance, a guise under which it has subsequently functioned in concert practice. The piece received its premiere on April 20, 1951, in Warsaw, given by The Great Symphony Orchestra of the Polish Radio under Grzegorz Fitelberg.
The suite movements are: "Fife" (Allegretto), "Hurra Polka" (Vivace), "Song" (Andante), "Dance" (Allegro molto), and they use folk melodies from Machów in the Rzeszów voivodeship.
While the Symphony no. 1, which was completed in 1947, was very coldly received by the politico-cultural authorities and was judged to be a ‘formalistic' work according to the doctrine of social realism (following one of its first performances, the vice-minister of culture at the time was to say that the composer of such music should be thrown under a tramway - a remark which, in practice, made it impossible for an entire decade to further present the Symphony), the Little Suite became one of the most popular pieces of Polish music in the first half of the 1950s. Witold Lutosławski often recalled that his musical output from those years was of ‘substitute' character: on the one hand because continuing serious attempts at renewing the musical language and creating works with which he could be fully satisfied would condemn them to rejection due to the ever present cultural doctrine, and also because - and this aspect of the matter was markedly emphasized by composer - he was not yet ready to construct a new musical language for himself.
Hence, pieces such as the Little Suite and Silesian Triptych (both written in the same year) should not be interpreted as a sign of the composer's compromise regarding the aesthetic doctrine of social realism or some kind of aesthetic-technical ‘delay', but as the writing of functional music (without applying any pejorative valuation of the term), considerably based on folkloristic inspirations and indifferent to doctrine, which nevertheless accepted these works. While treating the issue in this manner, it is worth seeing in such pieces a variant of Gebrauchsmusik (cultivated intensively in the thirties and practiced in particular by Paul Hindemith), a variant that functioned in a wider context as one of the manifestations of Neoclassicism; it is also worth indicating the very abundant creative output of the group Les Six, whose program consisted of writing light, easy-to-listen-to, pleasant music devoid of any ambitions in the domain of invention. Music's primary goal, according to Satie and Cocteau, was to be mostly comfortable and functional, like a well-constructed piece of furniture.
The beginning of the 50s inscribes itself in the catalogue of Lutosławski's with a fair number of didactic pieces, written in particular for the piano, but also for children's voices. Thus, it is worth listening to the Little Suite in isolation from the Polish circumstances surrounding its creation, as to a stylization of folkloristic music of great imagination and technical virtuosity suited to the use of the piece, a stylization characteristic of the national currents in the European music of the first half of the twentieth century. In Lutosławski's creative output this piece also fills the role of a prelude or technical study to the compositional intentions of which the first ideas appeared in the very same year of 1950, and which came to be realized in 1954. We are referring here to the Concerto for Orchestra, a work that constitutes the summit of Polish music's Neoclassicism, based in great part on folkloristic inspirations.
An allusion to the title's ‘Fife' (Allegretto) in the first link of the cycle is made in the ‘dancing' part of the piccolo flute with the accompaniment of the snare drum. In the second movement of the suite, titled "Hurra Polka" (Vivace), the humorous use of triple meter in a stylization of a dance originally in duple meter imbues the piece with the spirit of a scherzo. The melody of the "Song" (third movement of the suite - Andante) is lead by constantly interchanging instruments, while the last movement - "Dance" (Allegro molto) - is a tri-partite piece in which the outer links present a stylization of a dance from the land of Rzeszów called ‘lasowiak', and its central link is based on a stylization of a lyrical Polish folksong in the tempo of Poco più largo.
ach / trans. mk
| words: | Stanisław Wygodzki |
| orchestration: | voice and piano |
| year composed: | 1950 |
| edition: | PWM - Festiwal Muzyki Polskiej |
| orchestration: | men's choir and piano |
| year composed: | 1951 |
| year published: | 1951 |
| words: | Leopold Lewin |
| orchestration: | voice and piano |
| year composed: | 1950 |
| edition: | PWM - Festiwal Muzyki Polskiej 1950 |
| orchestration: | choir |
| year composed: | 1951 |
| orchestration: | male choir |
| year composed: | 1951 |
| year published: | 1951 |
| edition: | PWM |
| words: | Jan Brzechwa |
| orchestration: | voice and piano |
| year composed: | 1951 |
| year published: | 1951 |
| edition: | PWM - Festiwal Muzyki Polskiej |
| orchestration: | choir |
| year composed: | 1951 |