KPFA FM94 Berkeley Evening Concerts of New/Unusual Music PLAYLIST A monthly series of programs produced by Richard Friedman and heard every fourth (and fifth) Monday of the month, 8-10pm 28 February 1994 : In Memoriam - Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) It is with great sorrow that we honor the passing of one of Europe's major composers, who died in Warsaw last week at the age of 81. Lutoslawski was a great craftsman and a composer of highly elegant and rich music. He was also a major figure in the rebirth of contemporary music in Eastern Europe during the cultural thaw of the mid 1960's. This evening presented the following works by Lutoslawski, and included a taped interview recorded March 5, 1991 with the composer and Charles Amirkhanian. Funeral Music for String Orchestra (1958) Written in memory of Bela Bartok Concerto for Orchestra (1954) Warsaw National Symphony Orchestra, Witold Rowicki, cond. Recorded 1964. Digitally remastered on Philips 426 663-2 Mi-parti (1976) Polish National Radio Orchestra, Lutoslawski cond. (1976) Novelette (1978) Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Heinz Holliger, cond. (1984) Polskie Nagrania PNCD 043 ("Lutoslawski Volume 4" 1989) The following is excerpted from a text that was included in the program notes for the San Francisco Symphony's performances during the weekend of February 12th: Think of Witold Lutoslawski's work as the end of a search -- a search for music that reflects the shaky terrain of life in the late twentieth century and at the same time touches the heart. Great composers, like all great artists, have always mirrored the complexities of their times and offered ways of sorting through them. Lutoslawski's genius was in taking the unique complexities of our time and transforming them into art that is itself transfiguring, challenging, cleansing. Lutoslawski was never a member of the school of Schoenberg or Stravinsky, he was not a neoclassicist and he was not a new-Romantic. In remaining committed to his vision he created music that always sounds distinctly personal. That it also sounds distinctly universal is part of its appeal and part of its seductive magic. It is rigorously intellectual and disarmingly sensual. It sings of the randomness of the life we know, of the breakdown of what we once thought of as cause and effect; at the same time, and because it aleatoric or chance passages are embedded in the middle of such beautiful structures, his music offers the hope that reliable patters still exist. His music is, in all these things, paradoxical. Lutoslawski understood paradox. He understood the struggle that sounds so profoundly at the heart of his work, and he understood the courage and integrity with which it also gleams. .... Audiences were enthralled with his music and showed it in the warmth with which they acknowledged the performances he led here. Witold Lutoslawski was an advocate for life, and through his art he continues to convince us that the world as we know it is a place, despite a body of evidence to the contrary, in which beauty can take root and thrive. (This text was unsigned, but I suspect it was written by Michael Steinberg, program annotator for the Symphony.) Other recordings of Lutoslawski's works of interest are: DG 423696: Chain 2 (1984), and Partita for Violin & Orch (1985) Excellent recording !! with Anna Sophie Mutter and Lutoslawski conducting EMI 5 65076 2: Symphonic Variations (1938), Symphonies #1 (1947), #2 (1968) Just released digital remaster of 1978 EMI vinyl disk. Lutoslawski conducting Polish Radio Orchestra Philips 416387: Symphony #3 (1973), and Les espaces du sommeil (1975) Lutoslawski conducting Berlin Phil, Fischer-Dieskau baritone. "Lutoslawski and his music", by Steven Stucky, is a detailed and significant analysis of the composer and his work up to 1981, published by Cambridge University Press 1981. We hope a revised edition is in the making. Thank you for your continued interest in this music, these programs, and new music on KPFA. You can write to me at: Box 9584, Berkeley CA 94709, or by Email to rchrd@netcom.com For those of you with Internet access, I am maintaining these playlists and other music related documents on /pub/rchrd on netcom.com by anonymous FTP. .