Witold Lutoslawski: Still Discovering : Composer Says ‘Inspiration’ Is Key to Music

The frequently heard suggestion that the symphony orchestra has become a museum of anachronisms does not dismay Witold Lutoslawski, arguably the foremost living symphonist.

“I say the same! But what do you have to replace it? Electronics is a new art, a different art, but not replacing (orchestral) music,” he says.

“I love traditional instruments, though of course they are anachronisms. Satellites run around our planet, but we still play bassoons. It’s ridiculous,” he concedes cheerfully, then adds almost wistfully: “A lot of discovery is still left in the symphony orchestra.”

Lutoslawski’s most recent discoveries in the field can be heard Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, when the composer conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the first performances of his Fourth Symphony, plus his “Mi-parti” and Cello Concerto, with soloist Lynn Harrell.

“I am a composer for symphony orchestra,” Lutoslawski states simply. “I’m always involved in large scale, closed forms. So it’s a quite natural development.”

The certainty with which Lutoslawski views his calling was not even ruffled when the Polish government banned his First Symphony--a four movement, neoclassical work--in 1948.

“I was absolutely sure I would compose what I wanted,” he says calmly. “But I was not at all sure it would ever be performed. That sort of thing ended relatively early in Poland.”

Born in Warsaw, Lutoslawski still makes his home there, with a couple of months each year spent in Oslo, where members of his wife’s family are his closest living relatives. He devotes the bulk of his time to composing, and has won several of the big-money composition prizes. “Luckily, my works work for me,” he acknowledges wryly.

The problems the arts face in Poland now are familiar ones worldwide.

“It’s a fairly commonplace phenomenon--the lack of money is the big difficulty,” Lutoslawski says. “The activity of some ensembles will be discontinued, but they will maintain the best.

“Everywhere there is some recession. It’s been harder for us, because it involves a transition from a totalitarian government to democracy. There are some signs of improvement, but the standard of living is very low, and there has been a big wave of strikes.”

Like many of his mature orchestral pieces, Lutoslawski’s Fourth Symphony is in two movements, an introduction presenting ideas and stimulating expectations, followed by a big movement that brings the ideas to completion.

“In a way, though, it’s different from some of my other recent pieces, because the introductory movement is not composed of short episodes--it’s just a slow introduction,” Lutoslawski says. “The symphony is relatively short, not more than 22 minutes. It just was born like that.”

Lutoslawski composes to please himself. He works steadily at it, but not in the expectation that sheer labor will make music. Quoting Tchaikovsky he says, “I work regularly, because inspiration doesn’t come to lazy people.

“That is a very important notion. Everything in an authentic piece of music must be the result of inspiration. And what is inspiration?” Lutoslawski asks rhetorically. “When something suddenly appears in your sound imagination which didn’t exist a second before.

“A big part of everything I do is intuitive. I have some procedures and I’ve never stopped working on my sound language. I’ve discovered some rules, but in an empirical way, not thought out as doctrine. I test the sound phenomenon I construct with my own emotional reaction to it.”

The podium is where Lutoslawski does his most rigorous testing. He says that his work conducting is vital to his composing, and that he is able to bring an unusual attitude to his own music.

“I have the temperament of a performer, and I don’t feel myself a conductor of my own music. Rather, I think of myself as the conductor of pieces by a younger colleague, about whom I know more than anybody else. It’s a pleasure for an interpreter.

“To really know a piece, I must play it publicly several times,” Lutoslawski says. “I must learn my scores, and they’re not easy. It’s very easy to write difficult music. The real difficulty is to write playable music without compromise.”

The composer turned 80 last week, and the musical world is paying attention. He conducted the San Francisco Symphony in his music last month, and goes on to Britain and Paris.

“They want to remind me how old I am,” Lutoslawski says dryly. “Of course, I’m very grateful for the attention.”

The composer is aware that at his age, he has a relatively short catalogue. He works at his own pace, and is reluctant to describe his current projects.

“Until the moment I know it is ready, I don’t like to announce pieces. I don’t accept deadlines,” he says. “That’s damaging to the piece.”