| Contents |
Introduction: Witold Lutosławski's life and music -- On beauty, musical form, compositional technique, and perception. On beauty -- Notes on the construction of large-scale forms -- Problems of musical form -- Pitch, the interval, and harmonic aggregate -- Some problems in the area of rhythm -- Aleatorism -- About the element of chance in music -- Rhythm and organization of pitch in composing techniques -- Employing a limited element of chance -- Tonal system -- Seminar on instrumentation -- Theory and practice in the work of the composer -- Reflecting upon the art of composing -- The composer and the listener -- Some thoughts on the perception of music -- Sound language -- On his own works. Comments on early works (1934-1954) -- Concerto for Orchestra (1950-1954) -- Five songs to poems of Kazimiera Illakowicz (1956-1957) -- Musique funebre (1954-1958): improvisations on a given theme -- Jeux venitiens (1961) -- Trois poemes d'Henri Michaux (1961-1963) -- String Quartet (1964) -- Paroles tissees (1965) -- Symphony no. 2 (1965-1966) -- Cello Concerto (1969-1970) -- Prelude and fugue (1970-1972) -- Les espaces du sommeil (1975) -- Sacher Variation (1975) -- Mi-parti (1975-1976) -- Double Concerto (1979-1980) -- Symphony no. 3 (1972-1983) -- Chain 1 (1983) -- Partita (1984) -- Chain 2 (1984-1985) -- Piano Concerto (1987-1988) -- Chantefleurs et chantefables (1989-1990) -- On composers and musicians. On J.S. Bach -- On W.A. Mozart -- On Beethoven and Bartok -- On Messiaen -- On Ravel -- On Roussel's Symphony no. 3 -- On Shostakovich -- On Sibelius -- On Stravinsky -- On Webern -- On Chopin -- On Grazyna Bacewicz -- On Grzegorz Fitelberg -- On Witold Maliszewski -- On Constantin Regamey -- On Michal Spisak -- On Karol Szymanowski -- On Hermann Abendroth -- On Anne-Sophie Mutter -- Miscellaneous items on contemporary music in Poland and abroad. Opening address at the General Assembly of the Polish Composers' Union (1957) -- Reflections on the ISCM Festival of Contemporary Music in Rome (1959) -- About radio (1959) -- Reflections on ballet (1962) -- Is this music? (1963) -- Sounds in no matter what scale (1971) -- Reflections on the future of music (1972) -- Today's moment -- The London Sinfonietta (1973) -- Conducting the London Sinfonietta (1973) -- On the occasion of the Twentieth Warsaw autumn (1976) -- The philharmonia of my youth (1976) -- Speech at the Twenty-first General Assembly of Polish Composers' Union Meeting (1981) -- About the issue of truth in a work of art (1981) -- One hundredth anniversary of Parsifal (1982) -- An answer to young composers (1987) -- Music yesterday, today, and tomorrow (1983) -- An attitude toward French culture -- On silence -- Occasional speeches. On the hundredth anniversary of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna -- To the forty-sixth graduating class of the Cleveland Institute of Music, 1971 -- On receiving an honorary doctorate from Warsaw University, 1973 -- On receiving an honorary membership in the Royal Academy of Music, 1976 -- On receiving an honorary doctorate from the Nicolaus Copernicus University, 1980 -- On receiving the Siemens Prize from the Ernst von Siemens Foundation, 1983 -- On receiving an honorary doctorate from Jagiellonian University, 1984 -- On receiving an honorary doctorate from the Warsaw Academy of Music, 1988 -- On receiving the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, 1993 -- On receiving the Kyoto Prize, October 1993 -- Notebook of ideas, 1959-1984. |
| Abstract |
The writings of the twentieth-century Polish composer reveal his approach to music and viewpoints as an artist and a man. In the book, the first full collection of writings by this famous composer, the editor has amassed an assortment of essays, speeches, lectures, and articles, many of which are newly translated in English and previously unpublished. After an introductory autobiography, the writings, grouped into five chapters, illustrate various aspects of the composer's creativity and discuss musical form, compositional technique, and perception. The author examines his own works as well as those of other composers, and expresses his views on crucial elements of twentieth-century music, including the role of Schoenberg and Debussy and the impact of the Western avant-garde movement of the 1950s. The final and sixth chapter contains the author's artistic diary, his "notebook of ideas" written from 1959 to 1984, which contains personal reflections that do not appear in his public speeches and writings. Concluding with a select bibliography, this collection will give readers a unique and comprehensive overview of the man and his music, encouraging a full appreciation of the composer's compositional technique and aesthetic views, as well as his position in the history of twentieth-century music. |
| General note | Some texts are translated from Polish. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 331-338) and index. |
| LCCN | 2007020482 |
| ISBN | 9780810848047 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 9780810860131 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 081084804X (hardcover : alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 0810860139 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
