Witold Lutosławski

Publisher: Chester Music

Musique funèbre [Muzyka zalobna] (1958)

Work Notes

Chester Music is the publisher of this work in all territories except Poland, Albania, Bulgaria, China, countries of the former Czechoslovakia, countries of the former Yugoslavia, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Romania, Hungary and the whole territory of the former USSR, where the copyright is held by Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (PWM).

Publisher

Chester Music Ltd (Polish Works)

Category

Orchestra

Sub Category

String Orchestra

Year Composed

1958

Duration

14 Minutes

Orchestration

str

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Programme Note

Witold Lutosławski Musique funèbre [Muzyka zalobna] (1958)

LUTOSLAWSKI – MUSIQUE FUNEBRE

This work for strings is dedicated to the memory of Bela Bartók. Musique Funebre is a one-movement work made up of four linked sections: ‘Prologue’, ‘Metamorphosis’, ‘Apogeum’ and ‘Epilogue’. The first is constructed in the form of alternating canons based on a 12-tone row based exclusively on tritones and minor seconds. The ‘Metamorphosis’ builds up to a violent presto, while the ‘Apogeum’. The centre of the work leads to a central unison by contraction of the pitches used. The final ‘Epilogue’ begins fortissimo, after which the canons reappear until only a solo cello remains.

Musique Funebre was written at the invitation of Jan Krenz in 1958 and first performed by the Great Symphony Orchestra of Polish Radio and Television conducted by Jan Krenz on 26 march 1958 in Katowice.

© Witold Lutoslawski

Discography - Musique funèbre [Muzyka zalobna]

Ensemble
Suiss Romande Orchestra / London Sinfonietta / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Cleveland Orchestra
Soloist(s)
P. Pears, tenor P. Jablonski, piano
Conductor
P. Kletzki / Witold Lutoslawski / V. Ashkenazy / C. von Dohnanyi
Decca:
448 258 2DF2
Ensemble
Sinfonietta Cracovia
Soloist(s)
Michel Lethiec, clarinet / Isabelle Moretti, harp / François Leleux, oboe / François Salque, cello
Conductor
Robert Kabara
Arion:
ARN68617
Ensemble
Pomeranian Philharmonic Orchestra
Soloist(s)
K. Jakowicz, violin
Conductor
T. Ukigaya
Thorofon:
CTH2041
Ensemble
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
Conductor
Witold Lutoslawski
EMI:
CZS5 73833-2
Ensemble
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
Conductor
Witold Lutoslawski
EMI:
CDM5 65076-2
Ensemble
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Polish National Philharmonic Orchestra / Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Polish National Radio Orchestra
Soloist(s)
H. Schiff, celloM. Argerich, piano / N. Freire, pianoD. Fischer-Dieskau, baritone
Conductor
Witold lutoslawski / W. Rowicki / W. Lutoslawski / W. Rowicki
Philips:
464 043-2PM2
Ensemble
Karlsruhe Music School Symphony Orchestra
Soloist(s)
K-G. Kameda, violin
Conductor
Witold Lutoslawski
Bella Musica:
BM-CD319017
Ensemble
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor
Yan Pascal Tortelier
Chandos:
CHAN9421
Ensemble
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
Soloist(s)
K. Bakowski, violin
Conductor
Antoni Wit
Naxos:
8 553202
Ensemble
Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie
Conductor
Jean-Paul Dessy
Forlane:
16822
Ensemble
Concertgebouw Orchestra
Conductor
Witold Lutoslawski / Edo de Waart
Royal Netherlands Music:
RCO05001
G. Schirmer / AMP:

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Performances

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Reviews

…Lutoslawski’s Musique Funèbre is a work of extraordinary refinement, intimate and immense, its sepulchral pulse strong and slow through an arc of fragmented dances, flecked spiccato, dusty pizzicato, gauzy tremolandi and fevered trills.

Anna Picard, The Independent,03/02/2013

Both the Lutoslawski works in Esa-Pekka Salonen’s first programme were built on what the composer called his ‘chain’ principle, by which two or more strands of music were in effect braided together. But before this device was reached in Musique funebre – the first Lutoslawski work to attract international attention – one heard an anguished movement pursuing the contrapuntal course of a tritone (the ‘devil’s interval’)...

Michael Church, The Independent,31/01/2013

…Musique Funèbre, the intense string elegy that Lutosławski completed in 1958 as a memorial to Bartók, and in which many of the techniques of his later music are prefigured.

Andrew Clements, The Guardian,31/01/2013

After the interval came a reminder that Lutoslawski was capable of kindling overt passion within his tautly formalized, ascetic compositions. Funeral music for strings, written in memory of Bartok, dates from between 1956-1958, and preceded his experiments with aleatory methods, manifesting instead a strict serial construction. But its four movements sustained a searing threnody attaining a climax in the third movement, Apogeum, before resolving into the calm of the final epilogue under the composer’s baton, the BBC strings interpreted this piece with the ardour it deserved.

Meirion Brown, The Guardian,15/08/1988