Track Listing

1. Symphony No. 4
2. Les Espaces du sommeil
3. Symphony No. 3

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43506 in Music
• Released on: 1994-10-04
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com essential recording
Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) went through many changes in his career, but it was always in the service of his own style--which is, in the end, indescribable. This is an excellent disc that details some of the later transformations in Lutoslawski's thinking. The Symphony 4 (1992), which opens the disc, really highlights the composer's gift for melody, despite his atonal characterizations elsewhere. The work, while moving and dramatic, is extremely intense. Symphony 3 (1972-83) mixes tempos and interrupts moods constantly. Les Espaces du sommeil (1975) is a mixture of the concrete and abstract that creates an eerie, dreamlike scenario. This is one of Lutoslawski's masterpieces. --Paul Cook

Customer Reviews

A favorite
This is one of my favorite discs. I have known the symphonies since their early concert performances in the USA: I was present when Lutoslawski premiered the 4th Symphony with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (1993), for which he composed the piece, and when he conducted the 3rd in San Francisco in 1986. (Both were huge local events: many famous musicians were present at both occasions; I recall talking to members of the Kronos Quartet in the Green room after the concert as we waited to meet the composer.) I've also heard Salonen conduct these pieces in concert, so I am pretty familiar with his way with them. Although I love these performances, no recording of the 3rd can equal my experience of Lutoslawski conducting the San Francisco: It almost felt that the orchestra was going to leap out and swallow the audience whole, so powerfully did he make it growl, rumble, shake, and sing. It was a thrilling experience to hear, as it was to watch his face while he conducted (I sat in the chorus seating area for one performance): he looked so at peace and in command. Salonen's performance is wonderful, recorded soon after he led it in Los Angeles in 1983 (his debut with the LAPO, and a performance that made quite an impression on locals, obviously, considering the association that followed in later years). Nevertheless, I think Barenboim (on Erato) comes closer to the propulsion and drama that Lutoslawski invested in his performances of the piece. (Barenboim has the advantage of leading the orchestra for whom Lutoslawski wrote the piece.) Of course, it is possible to hear Lutoslawski conduct the piece himself, on Philips, though the Berlin Phil is not the ideal ensemble for this piece, being a bit too refined, me thinks, to convey its muscular and sometimes ragged feel. For the 4th Salonen is clearly superior to the other available performances, the orchestra sounds simply lovely, and Salonen keeps the melodic lines in clear view. My one complaint about the recording of the 4th is that it is recorded at a rather low volume. Where Salonen clearly shines is in his performance of Les Espaces du Sommeil. This is a brilliant, richly textured, glowing performance, and the vocalist is nicely placed amid the aural firmament. Salonen's Les Espaces is a recording for the ages.

Greatest Symphonist since Mahler.
I have become convinced that Lutoslawski is the greatest symphonist since Mahler, with only Elliott Carter as an contempory equal in orchestral writing. Carter may even surpass Lutoslawski if his Symphonia is as great as press reports say (a recording should be released next year), but that doesn't take away from what Lut. has accomplished. Symphonies 2-4, along with Livre Pour Orchestre, Novelette, and the various Concerti, all repay multiple listenings. Symph.No.3 is probably the masterpiece, all-in-all, but No.2 is the most radical experimentally, while No.4 may be the most beautiful. In all of them, you get continual surprises, vibrant sounds and rhythms, and a wholely original means of organization, like nothing before it. While Lut. is entirely modern, he's not so dark and dreary as some modern composers, nor is he simplistic like the minimalists. He's just great.

Music for our time...and for all time
Witold Lutoslawski is by now assured a repertoire staple, in many ways thanks to the commitment of Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Of the many giants of 20th Century music few were as introspective and compelled to discover a mode of expressing the psyche as Lutoslawski. My first introduction to his work was in the 1970s, listening to the rehearsals and subsequent performance of his 'Concerto for Orchestra' and it was love at first sound. Yet hearing how this quiet giant grew in his orchestrating techniques, his exploration of sound clouds and finding exquisite melody in a format of linear atonal composition all culminating in his 4th Symphony is no less than astonishing.

This disc captures the heart of the composer, with Salonen and his radiant orchestra presenting performances that are clean, rich, fully textured and eloquent. Coupling the 3rd and 4th symphonies with the 'Les Espaces du Sommeil'("Realm of Sleep" by Robert Desnos who died in a concentration camp shortly after the end of WWII) as interpreted by John Shirley-Quirk is very fine programming. This disc is destined to be an important part of every complete classical recording library.