Jeux vénitiens

Jeux vénitiens (Venetian Games) is often mentioned in general histories of twentieth-century music.  This is because it was Lutoslawski's first work to explore the technique of controlled aleatory counterpoint.  It is not one of his greatest works, but it has some highly distinctive and original features.

The correct title is the French one, although it translates perfectly well into Polish, English and German.  It was composed for performance at the Venice Biennale, and is scored for chamber orchestra.  It received its premiere (but without the third movement) at the Teatro La Fenice, on 24 April 1961, performed by the Krakow Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrzej Markowski.

The first complete performance (with the third movement) was given by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Witold Rowicki, at the Warsaw Autumn Festival on 16 September 1961.

The first movement is, indeed, a kind of 'game'.  It plays games with the perceptions and expectations of the listener.  The word 'game' also suggests that Lutoslawski was treating his new aleatory technique as an experiment, and was testing how it might operate.

The work is structured in four movements with the main weight of the design coming in the final movement. The finale is representative of the 'sound mass' textures that were explored in the early 1960s and can, in retrospect, be seen as typical of that era.  But Lutoslawski's treatment of the sound mass has an individual quality to it.

Instead of being static he quickly cuts (like a filmmaker) and overlaps sections so that the effect is still dynamic and dramatic.