Witold Lutosławski - Konzert für Orchester | Cristian Măcelaru | WDR Sinfonieorchester

Witold Lutosławski's "Concerto for Orchestra" performed by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its principal conductor Cristian Măcelaru. Recorded live at the orchestra's 75th anniversary concert at the Kölner Philharmonie on Oct. 29, 2022. Witold Lutosławski - Concerto for Orchestra 00:00:00 I. Intrada. Allegro maestoso 00:07:12 II. Capriccio Notturno e Arioso. Vivace ∙ 00:13:31 III. passacaglia, toccata e corale. Andante con moto WDR Symphony Orchestra Cristian Măcelaru, conductor ► For more on the symphony orchestra, concerts, and current livestreams, visit https://sinfonieorchester.wdr.de ► The WDR Symphony Orchestra on Facebook   / wdrsinfonieorchester   #classicalmusic #concert #brass Work introduction "Truth in music I understand as a sincere, honest expression of what one has to say to others of one's own." The man who said these words was a grand seigneur of Polish music who strove throughout his life to uphold truth and fidelity to himself even in cataclysmic times and under changing regimes. When the academician's son Witold Lutosławski attended the conservatory of his hometown Warsaw in the early 1930s, Marshal Piłsudski ruled Poland with dictatorial powers; under the German occupation, the young musician had to make a living as a coffeehouse pianist before his native city was razed to the ground by Hitler's troops after the failure of the Warsaw Uprising. The post-war period brought first Stalinist terror, then a cautious thaw, during which Lutosławski organized the new music festival "Warsaw Autumn" and became the leading figure of the young generation around Penderecki or Górecki. Lutosławski also visited Cologne and the WDR, at that time a heart chamber of the avant-garde, several times; twice he conducted the WDR Symphony Orchestra. For the orchestra, music by Lutosławski was part of the repertoire - unfortunately, all efforts to persuade the composer to write an oboe concerto (for Lothar Faber) and cello concerto (for Siegfried Palm) failed. Lutosławski finished his most frequently performed work, the "Concerto for Orchestra," in 1954, when in Poland the Soviet doctrine of "socialist realism" severely restricted composing stylistically: The processing of historical models and folk music was permitted, the Western avant-garde condemned as bourgeois formal play. Lutosławski made the best of it by drawing on Béla Bartók's "Concerto for Orchestra," pouring orchestral brilliance into baroque techniques and drawing some themes from the musical tradition of the Kurpies in northern Poland. A massive Intrada, an elfinly wispy Capriccio, and a powerful final complex of a Passacaglia over a repeating bass, a virtuosic Toccata, and chorale variations chart the process from a conflicted beginning to new confidence. And to this day, the dark and aggressive passages of Lutosławski's masterpiece make palpable the political repressions whose aftermath continues to shape Poland's self-image to this day. (Text: Michael Struck-Schloen)