AboutWitold Lutosławski
Witold Lutoslawski (born January 25, 1913, Warsaw; died February 7, 1994, there) is considered a representative of the new Polish expressiveness, thus occupying an intermediary position between serial and aleatoric compositional styles. Lutoslawski came from a musical family and initially received private piano and violin lessons as a child. He then studied piano and composition at the Warsaw Conservatory, notably with Witold Maliszewski, a student of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Until around 1945, his compositions were primarily under the neoclassical influence of Igor Stravinsky, followed by a phase in which he focused mainly on folk music and Béla Bartók. From the mid-1950s, Lutoslawski increasingly experimented with serial and aleatoric techniques, which also confronted him with the ideas of John Cage ("Jeux vénitiens" for small orchestra, 1961).
After a period in Stalinist Poland that rejected his freer compositional work and during which he supported himself by composing utilitarian music for film, radio, and theater, increasing acceptance began in the 1960s. In the second half of his life, Lutoslawski was also active as a conductor and educator. Witold Lutoslawski's oeuvre primarily focuses on working with and for orchestras. He wrote four symphonies (1947, 1967, 1983, 1992), three Postludes (1960), "Musique funèbre for Strings" (1958), the "Livre pour orchestre" (1968), as well as a Cello Concerto (1970), the composition for percussion and strings "Mi-Parti" (1976), the "Chain" cycle for chamber orchestra (1983, 1985, 1986), and his Piano Concerto (1988).
Among his chamber music works, his String Quartet (1964) received particular international acclaim. In Germany, Witold Lutoslawski became especially well-known through the first movement of his "Concerto for Orchestra" (1950–54), which the ZDF magazine used as its theme from 1969–88. Furthermore, he is considered a pioneer of modern conducting, as he emphasized working ad libitum in his orchestral works, meaning spontaneously in the shaping of tempo and rhythm. Lutoslawski preferred to conduct his own works.