Yo-Yo Ma, photo: Grzegorz Rogiński / East News
The Lutosławski Year 2013 reaches another peak at the end of February and in early March, with Yo-Yo Ma as soloist in the Cello Concerto with the Chicago Symphony for performances from the 28th of February – the 3rd of March. With Ma's superb instrumental skills and international recognition - and the power of the Chicago Symphony - the Concerto’s dramatic, provocative music gains another important interpretation. The piece is also performed on the 28th of February by soloist Johannes Moser, with Matthias Pintscher conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow.
Maestro Salonen's compelling advocacy for the music of Witold Lutosławski, with whom he worked while conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, continues in March at the Woven Words festival in London, then in Warsaw and in Italy. Woven Words featured 5 pianists on the 27th of February in the Recital Hall of the Royal College of Music, in a programme that included Lutosławski's Two Studies for piano and Bucolics. An all-Lutosławski programme on the 6th of March in the Recital Hall features chamber music for brass quintet, the Epitaph for oboe and violin, Partita for violin and piano – a piece that Anne-Sophie Mutter plays on her March tour in the U.S. – and one of the composer's final pieces, Subito.
The Woven Words festival is organised by the Philharmonia Orchestra with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw. The Philharmonia site includes an interactive feature, Aleatoric Games, with which visitors can experiment with elements Lutosławski developed since the 1960s that make his later orchestral works vibrant and lively in the concert hall (woven-words.co.uk/game). By dragging 20-second samples from a selection of Harmony themes and joining them with Rhythm passages, the user experiments as the conductor and ensemble are permitted to do in such works as the Cello Concerto. By utilising flute and clarinet parts, rather than full orchestra sections, the segments are evocative and comprehensible – and one can compare immediately with other levels of simplicity or complexity.
The online feature includes demonstration interviews with Steven Stucky and wind players from the orchestra. Again, the attention to brief, individual segments brings an appreciation of the marvel that comes to life in the concert hall and in fine recordings, as orchestral strength and range opens to risk and opportunity in open interpretation. The musicians describe expectations that trained professionals play together, and of how Lutosławski’s later scores can make for an initial reaction that is “very destabilizing”. Playing the same passages, they may finish at the same time, or even seconds apart – “you can make the dimenuendos exactly what you want”, says principal flutist Samuel Coles. The point is also made that “it’s not about where it finishes, it’s about a certain texture among the players”.
These textures make startling atmosphere in the concert hall, even more so in the hands of the powerful orchestras. For a Woven Words concert on the 7th of March at the Royal Festival Hall, the Philharmonia plays the Cello Concerto, with Maestro Salonen conducting and soloist Truls Mørk. They then bring the piece to the Warsaw Philharmonic on the 13th of March, along with Musique funèbre. Maestro Salonen and the Philharmonia then tour to Italy, with concerts at Modena on the 16th of March at Teatro Communale Luciano Pavorotti, and Rome at the Teatro dell Opera on the 18th of March.
Warsaw and international events
In the composer’s home city, the annual Chopin Birthday Concert at the Warsaw Philharmonic occurs on the 1st of March, with pianists Daniil Trifonov and Peter Jablonsky. The concert features Chopin’s first piano concerto with Lutosławski’s Piano Concerto and the Variations on a Theme by Paganini – and with his first aleatoric piece, Venetian Games. The Warsaw Philharmonic has included some 40 works of Lutosławski during the centenary year, selected and programmed by musical director and principal conductor Antoni Wit and his staff. Maestro Wit spoke with Culture.pl about the year, citing the March concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra as their biggest investment, “but we should do it Lutosławski knew personally Esa-Pekka Salonen and appreciated him, so I am very happy that they decided to come with a whole Lutosławski programme.”
Another main event in the Lutosławski Year was the birthday concert on the 25th of January with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and a commissioned piece from composer Paweł Szymański, “which was my personal choice”, Maestro Wit explained. “When we chose the composer for this season, I thought about Paweł Szymański because he is the main composer after the generation of Penderecki, Kilar and Górecki, and is connected with the Lutosławski Year.” The next composer of the season will be Krzysztof Meyer, beginning in October 2013, after Maestro Wit steps down as musical director at the Philharmonic. “Meyer’s connection with Lutosławski is also strong, and he co-wrote a very good biography of Lutosławski.”
Maestro Wit first conducted Lutosławski’s work in 1968, with the Concerto for Orchestra, meeting the composer and noting his “many remarks” onto the score. One piece he has performed extensively abroad has been the Livre pour orchestra, and as musical director of the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, he conducted the Polish premiere of Symphony No. 4 during the 80th birthday celebrations for the composer. Upon Lutosławski’s death, he accepted the proposal of the Naxos label to record all of the composer’s work, which is available on nine CDs.
Of the Philharmonic's extensive programming, he said “Our idea was to avoid concerts with only Lutosławski on the program”. He favored giving the audience “different kinds of connections, where we put Lutosławski with other pieces. I will conduct the concert with Katia and Marielle Labeque”, when the pianists join the Warsaw Philharmonic on the 24th of May. “They will play Lutosławski’s Paganini for two pianos without orchestra, then they will play Poulenc. When I see this year that there are many, many performances of Lutosławski – and not only those that are the work of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute - I am happy to see that twenty years after his death, the music is alive.”
Maestro Wit has conducted Lutosławski this year in Helskink, Stuttgart, and performs in Porto, Portugal, and in Zagreb in November. Other international activity includes concerts of the Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi’s concerts of Musique funebre with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3. The programmes are from the 8th – 10th of March, at the Kimmel center for the Performing Arts. And in Athens, a recital at the Acropolis Museum on the 15th of March includes Lutosławski’s Three Fragments for Flute, on a Polish programme that includes Moniuszko and Penderecki, by flutist Iwona Glinka and pianist Dionisios Malouhos.
For more on the Woven Words schedule and their Aleatoric Game interactive feature, see: http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/
For more on Lutoslawski Year 2013 schedules, see: http://lutoslawski.culture.pl/web/lutoslawskien/calendar