POLISH COMPOSER : IN L.A., IT’S THE YEAR OF LUTOSLAWSKI

Congratulated on his birthday--he will be 72 Friday--and his appearance, composer Witold Lutoslawski beamed. “I don’t feel as old as I am,” he said, half-apologetically.

Probably the most acclaimed of living Polish composers, Lutoslawski (pronounced Lu-toes-WAFF-skee) has just arrived from St. Paul, Minn., where he conducted the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in some of his own works and where he heard the world premiere performance of his last-completed work, Partita, as given by Pinchas Zukerman.

In residence at USC through next Wednesday, Lutoslawski is conducting and rehearsing his own music and is talking to students and faculty at the university. He will also attend the inauguration of the new Polish Music Reference Center at USC, tonight at 6, where he will donate five of his personal manuscripts--”Novelette,” “Mi-Parti,” Preludes and Fugue, “Mini-Overture” and “Paroles tissees.”

Afterward, at 8 tonight in Hancock Auditorium at USC, Lutoslawski will conduct the USC Contemporary Music Ensemble in the West Coast premiere of “Chain 1,” written in 1983 for “an orchestra of soloists.”

On the same program are the String Quartet (1964), to be played by the Kronos Quartet; the Variations on a theme of Paganini (1941), to be performed by duo-pianists Jean Barr and Armen Guzelimian; the “Mini-Overture” (1982) for brass quintet; “Epitaph” (1979) for oboe and piano, and “Grave” (1981) for cello and piano.

Friday night at 8 at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, soprano Melanie Tomasz from Southern Illinois University will present a recital of music by Polish composers Lutoslawski, Szymanowski and Baird. To be heard here for the first time are Lutoslawski’s Five Songs (1957).

“Chain 1,” as the composer describes it, is the first in a series of separate works that will “not be a cycle. A chain is a form I have found, and ‘Chain 2,’ for violin and orchestra, will not be like ‘Chain 1,’ which I wrote for the London Sinfonietta, and presented to them in the fall of 1983. Written for strings, three brass, five woodwinds and percussion, it is not long--under 10 minutes.

“Grave”--”pronounced the Italian way (GRAH-vay),” the composer says--”begins with the first four notes of ‘Pelleas,’ and they are repeated, fortissimo, at the climax. I think this is the only instance of a quotation in all of my music,” Lutoslawski acknowledges.

Though the composer will remain in Los Angeles only through Jan. 31, his presence may be felt throughout this entire 1984-85 season.

One of his major works, the Third Symphony, was given its West coast premiere, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in the week of Nov. 29. Another important Lutoslawski work, “Mi-Parti,” will reach Southern California Feb. 11, when the USC Symphony, conducted by Daniel Lewis, will play it at Ambassador Auditorium; the composer will participate in rehearsals for the work during his visit here. He will also attend a reading rehearsal for his “Trois Poemes d’Henri Michaux,” Monday afternoon (from 1 to 3, and open to the public); that work will be performed at USC next season.

About the “Five Songs” that Tomasz will sing Friday night, Lutoslawski says: “They are based on poems from ‘Children’s Rhymes,’ by the late Polish poetess, Kozimiera Illakowicz. These songs mark an important moment in my personal musical development, for they were the first work in which I began to realize the sound-language I had been seeking since 1947.

“At that time, I started from scratch, from zero. I was looking for a sound-language, a pitch-organization, of 12 tones, but not the dodecaphonic system (of the post-Schoenbergians)--my private dodecaphonic system.”

About the Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Lutoslawski says: “Recently, I bought a new recording of it, by Martha Argerich and Nelson Freire--a wonderful performance. It is, if you can believe it, the 16th recorded performance of the work. The first was by Vronsky and Babin.”

The piece, Lutoslawski points out, was written to be performed in a coffeehouse.

“During the German occupation of Poland in World War II, from 1939 to 1945, all musical life was forbidden. So, we made music in cafes,” he says. “My partner, Andrzej Panufnik, and I, played two pianos. And we made arrangements, probably 200 in all, of all kinds of music, from Bach to Ravel’s ‘Bolero.’

“Sometimes, not to get bored, we did some interesting things. For instance: We made arrangements of Johann Strauss waltzes--in the style of Ravel.

“The Variations on a Theme of Paganini was one of the pieces I did by myself. It follows Paganini’s original quite closely--till the end.

“And, surprisingly, this virtuoso showcase, which lets the pianists display their wit, technique and skills is probably the most popular and most performed of all my works.”