| Abstrakt: |
Polish classical composer. The younger son of Jósef Lutosławski and Maria Olszewska, Witold Lutosławski (VEE-tohlt loo-toh-SWAWF-skee) at an early age lost his father. Having demonstrated musical talent, he began taking piano lessons at the age of six, first with Helena Hoffman and later with Jozef Smidowicz, and he also studied the violin with Lidia Kmitowa, followed by composition studies with Witold Maliszewski, both privately and at the Warsaw Conservatory. In the early 1930’s he studied mathematics at the University of Warsaw. Upon his graduation from the Warsaw Conservatory, he intended to further his composition studies in Paris, a tradition for Polish composers going back to Frédéric Chopin, since the musical scene in Poland had not much to offer, especially in contemporary music. Instead, because of the political situation in Poland, he went through military training and German imprisonment, escaping back to Warsaw. At the time the city was culturally deprived by wartime occupation, and he experienced a period of hardship, playing piano in cafés, as this was the only way to make a living from music. After the war Lutosławski married Maria Danuta Bogusławska, and they settled in a small, noisy apartment in Warsaw in 1946. Lutosławski supported them at first by composing utilitarian music for Polish radio, as well as scores for theater and film, an activity he continued until 1960 and that sustained him also during the years of Communist censorship (1949-1954), when his Symphony No. 1 was banned as formalist and decadent. He continued to develop his contemporary idiom mostly in secrecy. He was active in the Polish Composers’ Union and a co-organizer of the Warsaw Autumn Contemporary Music Festival. After 1955, having already traveled briefly to the West for festivals and conferences, his reputation abroad started gaining momentum, and his Funeral Music was performed widely in Europe and the United States. By 1961 his international success was rapidly growing with many important performances (especially of Venetian Games) and guest lectures. |
