This is the fifth and now final volume in our survey of\norchestral works by the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski.\nGramophone wrote of a previous volume in the series (CHSA5106) that\nit ‘offers a broad view of Lutosławski’s creative profile, which\nthe BBC Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner fleshes out with\nplaying that is as polished as it is animated, and alert to the\nindividuality of Lutosławski’s musical vocabulary and mode of\nexpression’.

\n

Lutosławski wrote his Symphony No. 1 between 1941 and 1947, but\ninterestingly it does not display any obvious signs of his trying\nto come to terms with the ordeal that befell his people. Quite the\nopposite, in fact. Lutosławski himself described the symphony as\nbright and cheerful, ‘because that was the idea of the composition,\nwhich was conceived in the period of independence before the war,\nbut brought into being during the terrible wartime and in far from\nidyllic post-war years’. At the time, one Polish colleague went so\nfar as to call it ‘fauvist’, so wild and vibrant did it appear to\nthe audiences at its first performance in April 1948.

\n

Lutosławski was a meticulous collector of folk materials in the\nfirst half of the 1950s, but for him, Dance Preludes was a\n‘farewell to folklore’, even though he privately still explored\nfolk tunes for several more years. Here the orchestra and conductor\nare joined by the clarinettist Michael Collins, an exclusive\nChandos artist.

\n

As his career developed in the more open environment that\nemerged after the ‘socialist-realist’ period, Lutosławski began to\nreceive international recognition, and with the Partita (1984,\norchestrated 1988), for violin and orchestra, he presented a newly\nrelaxed, more melodic compositional style to the public. The\nsoloist is the exclusive Chandos artist Tasmin Little.

\n

Chain 2 (1984 – 85) was premiered by Anne-Sophie Mutter on 31\nJanuary 1986 with Collegium Musicum, conducted by Paul Sacher to\nwhom it was dedicated. On this recording Tasmin Little leads the\norchestra through a succession of ideas, much as the soloist had\ndone in the ‘Episodes’ movement of the Cello Concerto (recorded on\nCHSA5106 with Paul Watkins).

\n\n