Various - LUTOSLAWSKI [CD]

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Best of LutoslawskiThe composer, conductor and pianist Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) is widely regarded as one of the greatest artists in the history of twentieth century Polish music. His significant oeuvre includes four symphonies, three solo concertos (for cello, piano, and a double concerto for oboe and harp), vocal works (notably Paroles tissées, Les Espaces du Sommeil and Chantefleurs et Chantefables) and a string quartet.Born in Warsaw on 25th January 1913 he began piano lessons at the age of six and composed his first notated piece at the age of nine. Between 1927-37 he studied piano and composition at the Warsaw Conservatory under the tutelage of Jerzy Lefeld and Witold Maliszewski respectively, as well as mathematics at Warsaw University. During the years of German occupation (1939-45) Lutoslawski, together with his friend and fellow composer Andrzej Panufnik (1914-1991), managed to eke out a living in Warsaw’s cafés playing arrangements for piano duet of over two hundred works ranging from Bach to Debussy. After the war he joined the music department of the Polish Broadcasting Company, writing scores for radio, theatre and film. But Poland was soon to be subjected to yet another loss of freedom, coming under the yoke of Stalin and the new cultural doctrine of Socialist Realism in the arts. In a specific reference to music the Minister of Culture, Zhdanov, indicated the new constraints under which composers would now have to work by declaring that 'Dissonance is the enemy of the people'. During this period Lutoslawski composed the overtly neo-classical First Symphony (1941-47), which was subsequently banned as 'formalist' in 1949. There then followed a period of discovery during which he turned to folk music as a potential source of raw compositional material. This period saw the creation of the Little Suite (1951) for orchestra, the Silesian Triptych (1951) for soprano and orchestra, and the Bukoliki (1952) for piano. The ne plus ultra of these folkloric works is undoubtedly the exuberant Concerto for Orchestra (1950-54).In the political and cultural thaw that followed the death of Stalin in 1953 (including the birth of the illustrious Warsaw Autumn Festival of Contemporary Music in 1956), Lutoslawski was finally able to put into practice some of the compositional techniques which he had hitherto only been able to study. These included the 12-note technique which he discovered was not particularly suited to his artistic sensibility. Of much greater significance to his own stylistic development was the application of a technique that he described as limited aleatoricism. 'This means using chance elements to enrich the rhythmic and expressive character of the music, without in any way limiting the authority of the composer over the final form of the work'. The technique, a central trait of the composer’s mature style (and related to the fundamental role that texture plays in Lutoslawski’s music), was first u

Symphonic Variations

Overture for Strings

Little Suite

Concerto For Orchestra

Funeral Music: Epilogue

Jeux Venitiens

Cello Concerto

Paganini Variations

Chain II

Piano Concerto