Witold Lutosławski - Orchestral Works Vol. 2 (Louis Lortie; Edward Gardner)

Information

Composer: Witold Lutosławski

• Symphonic Variations
• Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
• Variations on a Theme of Paganini, for solo piano and orchestra
• Symphony No. 4

Louis Lortie, piano

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Edward Gardner, conductor

Date: 2012

Label: Chandos

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Review

The third volume in Chandos’s welcome Lutosławski series brings a second helping of purely orchestral fare in a programme spanning the Polish master’s entire career. Proceedings are launched in irrepressible fashion with the Symphonic Variations that the budding 25-year-old composer finished in 1938 while still a student at the Warsaw Conservatory. His teacher, Witold Maliszewski, was scathing (‘For me your work is ugly’); however, in a performance as vivacious and committed as this one, it comprises a veritable treat, for the music is personable, resourceful and witty, and scored with colourful assurance to boot.

Three years later, Lutosławski completed his Variations on a Theme of Paganini, a dazzlingly inventive showpiece for two pianos; this arrangement for piano and orchestra was written in 1978 at the behest of Felicja Blumental (who went on to give the premiere in Miami the following year). Louis Lortie makes quite a splash with it and is no less scrupulously appreciative of those dependable virtues (among them elegance of form, generous lyricism and tumbling fantasy) that distinguish the strongly communicative Piano Concerto that Lutosławski fashioned for Krystian Zimerman in 1987-88. Plaudits, too, for Gardner’s conception of the riveting Fourth Symphony (1988-92), which has both infectious involvement and considerable expressive ardour to commend it, if not quite the supreme composure and cumulative power of Salonen’s unerringly paced pioneering account with the LAPO.

Throughout, Gardner secures some first-class playing from the BBC SO; Ralph Couzens’s engineering is, needless to say, state-of-the-art. Cordially recommended – and next up, I gather, is a coupling of the Cello Concerto (with Paul Watkins as soloist) and Second Symphony.

— Andrew Achenbach

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Witold Lutosławski (25 January 1913 – 7 February 1994) was a Polish composer and conductor. Educated in Warsaw, he initially drew inspiration from Polish folk music, gaining international recognition with works such as Concerto for Orchestra (1954). From the late 1950s, he developed innovative compositional techniques involving controlled aleatoricism, carefully structured musical materials and distinctive harmonic systems. Despite political pressure under postwar Stalinist rule, Lutosławski maintained his artistic independence. His major works include four symphonies, concertos and chamber compositions.

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Edward Gardner (born 22 November 1974) is an English conductor. Educated at the University of Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music, he began as a choral conductor and répétiteur before advancing to major roles. He served as music director of English National Opera (2007–15) and later held key positions with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Bergen Philharmonic (2015–24), where he became honorary conductor. Since 2021, he has been principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with tenure extended to 2028. Gardner has recorded for EMI Classics and Chandos Records.

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