This is the fourth volume in Chandos’ series devoted to the\nmusic of the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski.

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Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, described by\nGramophone as a ‘veritable dream team’ in a review for Vol. 1, are\njoined on this recording by the cellist and exclusive Chandos\nartist Paul Watkins.

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Lutosławski drew his main thematic material for Little Suite\n(Mała suita) from folk melodies from the village of Machów in\nsouth-east Poland. As such he was following one of the paths\nrecommended by the communist government for connecting to the\n‘broad masses’ by creating what today might be called ‘people’s\nmusic’. In this work Lutosławski demonstrates his characteristic\nlightness of touch, excellent ear for orchestral timbre, and\nability to transform his material into something highly\nindividual.

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The Second Symphony (1965 – 67) was Lutosławski’s first\nlarge-scale orchestral work since the Concerto for Orchestra (1950\n– 54), and a lot had happened in Poland since the premiere of that\nwork. The government had significantly eased its cultural\nrestrictions for music, which meant that Polish composers were\nbecoming increasingly exposed to new ideas from the West.\nLutosławski, ever his own man, chartered a distinctive path through\nthis thicket of new music, and by the mid-60s he had developed his\nown individual and expressive idiom. In the Second Symphony, he\ncreates an atmosphere of tense anticipation in the opening stages,\nbefore drawing the listener into the ensuing, more purposefully\ndeveloped music, which reaches a climactic explosion and\nresolution.

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Paul Watkins is the soloist in the Cello Concerto, one of the\nmost original works of recent times. While Lutosławski insisted\nthat this highly dramatic work was a purely musical drama, Mstislav\nRostropovich, its dedicatee, considered the music to be a mirror of\nhis own battles with the authorities in the Soviet Union in the\nlate 1960s and ’70s.

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In Grave, for solo cello and strings, for the first time in his\nlife (not counting folk-inspired pieces), Lutosławski based a work\non the music of another composer: the first four notes of Debussy’s\nPelléas et Mélisande. He takes Debussy’s motif and transforms it\nfrom intense musings into a free-flowing succession of robust and\nvigorous shapes.

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