Search - Witold Lutoslawski, Andrzej Markowski, National Symphony Orchestra in Warsaw :: Witold Lutoslawski, Volume Six: Two Studies for Piano / Variations on a Theme of Paganini for 2 Pianos / Five Songs / String Quartet / Epitaph for Oboe & Piano / Grave for Cello & Piano / Partita for Violin & Piano

A motley collection of Lutoslawski works, in less than ideal

Discophage | France | 01/30/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In the late 1980s Polskie Nagrania issued a convenient series of 6 CDs collating various works of Lutoslawski. Many were reissues of LPs which had served well, and it was nice to have them back on CD. That said, when comparisons are available to me (Paganini Variations, String Quartet, Grave), the interpretations appear inferior to the best and the sonics often flawed.



You'll get only a faint idea of what the Paganini Variations can - and should - sound like if you listen to Jacek and Maciej Lukaszczyk. The difference between them and Martha Argerich and Nelson Freire (Rachmaninov: Suite No. 2, Op. 17; Ravel: La Valse; Lutoslawski: Paganini Variations, reissued on Duo Piano Extravaganza) is the same as between a perfunctory stroll and a wild roller-coaster ride. Somebody should have told them: "OK, the piece is in place, now let's play it up to tempo for the recording".



I pulled the CD out of my shelves for sake of comparing the 1964 String Quartet to various others that I have in my collection. The Lasalle Quartet have unique legitimacy in this piece, as it was written for them and they premiered it. The version featured here is apparently NOT the studio recording they made for DG in December 1967 (Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Cage, Mayuzumi: String Quartets - it is through this recording that many music lovers became acquainted with the piece in the LP era) although the interpretations and even the spatial allocation of the instruments are so strikingly similar that it is hard to tell for sure. The production notes are pretty uninformative about the where and when of this one, stating only "1965, Warsaw". The recording is a bit more spacious and present, and with it (especially in the introductory movement) the "mechanical" noises of the players (but nothing obtrusive). There is little to choose between both readings: the earlier one may have a miniscule edge on account of the greater explosiveness of its outbursts and its slightly more vivid sound, although it has the drawback of not having the 2nd movement cued (its starts at 8:53). Still, in itself, the Lasalle's reading isn't top drawer. As I will comment in my review of the DG CD when I post it, it bears all the hallmarks of a "period performance": the Lasalle are somewhat underpowered and aren't very evocative; under their bows Lutoslawski's myriad timbral effects sounds... just like a collection of dry timbral effects: they play the notes but not the "story" behind the notes. All the other versions I know - Alban Berg (especially noteworthy for their incomparably furious main movement, Lutoslawski: Streichquartett/Urbanner; Streichquartett No.4/Berio: Notturno), Varsovia (The Varsovia Quartet Plays String Quartets from Poland: Szymanowski (Nos. 1 & 2) / Lutoslawski / Penderecki (No. 2)), New Leipzig (String Quartets), Arditti (Kurtag/Lutoslawski/Gubaidulina:String or Kurtág, Lutoslawski & Gubaidulina: Works for String Quartet) - are significantly better.



"Grave", subtitled "Metamorphoses for cello and piano", from 1981 is a short, angry piece in which one hears little of the subtle, shimmering sonic invention of Lutoslawski and much syncopated, angry pounding. Jablonski and Esztenyi are more urgent but not as full in tone and not as well recorded as Heinrich Schiff and Aci Bertoncelj (on EMI Studio CDM 769514-2, a 1988 CD with Shostakovich's Cello Sonata and Martinu's Variations on a Slovak Theme, for which I have found no entry here or on the European sister companies). It is a live recording from the 1981 Warsaw Autumn Festival and the recording suffers some dropouts; the cello is also recessed compared to the piano.



Nonetheless I am happy to have the other pieces featured on the disc. The same agitated and angry atmosphere imbues Partita for Violin and Piano from 1984, and the same recording problems mar the recording: although recorded in 1988, it sound boxy; but one adjusts. I have no other version to compare Kulka and Knapik's reading with. The various movements aren't cued. Epitaph for Oboe and Piano is also a late composition, from 1979, and although it was written In Memoriam the British composer Alan Richardson,it more playful and whimsical than the two other ones. Again this is a live recording from the 1980 Warsaw Autumn. In these three late chamber music compositions, although Lutoslawski's distinctive style is easily recognizable, I don't find him as inventive or evocative as in his orchestral music. To fully unfold his unique sound-world needed the shimmering colors of the orchestra.



Witness the Five Songs on poems by Kazimiera Illakowicz. Rarely has Lutoslawski's debt to his compatriot Szymanowski been more in evidence, and like his elder's, Lutoslawski's orchestra is shimmering, sensuous, mesmerizing. Texts not provided. The 1967 studio sonics so-so, making the orchestra sound somewhat muffled, and the original tapes seem worn and suffer some wow.



The two early (1941) and short (4:25 in all) Studies for Piano are impressive. They inhabit the same stylistic world as the Paganini Variations. The virtuosity is dazzling. Many burgeoning composers around those years and those places (East of the not-yet constructed Berlin wall) were under the influence of Bartok (take Ligeti for instance), when not Hindemith or Schoenberg. Young Lutoslawski was an epigone to no one. To bad he didn't write 24.



Serviceable, only as long as something better doesn't show up.

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