Authors

One of the greatest Polish composers and a leading figure in 20th-century Polish music; composer, pianist, and conductor. Born on 25 January 1913 in Warsaw, he died there on 7 February 1994. He studied piano with Jerzy Lefeld and composition with Witold Maliszewski at Warsaw Conservatory. Symphonic Variations (1938), his debut as a composer, were performed in March 1939 under the baton of Grzegorz Fitelberg. Under the German occupation, he worked as a pianist, most notably in a duo with Andrzej Panufnik. After the war, he was involved in the work of the Polish Composers’ Union, as well as co-organising the Warsaw Autumn festival. In the 1960s he taught music courses in Aarhus, Darlington, Stockholm, and Tanglewood. Later he only sporadically gave lectures on his own music. From 1963 until his death, he worked as a conductor, appearing in many countries of Europe and North America. He was a multiple 1st prize (selected work) winner at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in Paris, recipient of the award of the Polish Composers’ Union and the Koussevitzky Prize. In 1994 he was awarded the highest Polish state decoration, the Order of the White Eagle. Lutosławski’s youthful works were still impacted by French Impressionism, while the first post-war decade was under the influence of native folklore. A breakthrough in the composer’s style came with Funeral Music (1954–1958), in which he proposed a new look at the harmonic material – operating with all twelve tones, but with a reduced number of intervals. In the 1960s and 1970s, Lutosławski explored a number of innovative technical solutions (such as controlled aleatoricism) and structures (e.g. a bipartite concept known as chain form, consisting of an introduction and the main segment). His late works are a synthesis of previously developed techniques, while at the same time demonstrating some simplification of harmony and increased importance of melody