Abstract:
There are many scholarly theses, essays, studies and books written about the composing
creativity of Witold Lutosławski. However, it seems interesting to quote here the statement of Lutosławski himself about his own compositions and to show his attitude to his own creative output. The 2nd Symphony serves as an example. this work was ordered by the radio broadcasting station Norddeutscher Rundfunk in hamburg. Lutosławski worked on the 2nd Symphony in the period 1965-1967 and built it of two parts. The first part was titled Hésitant and the second one Direct. These two parts are not separated with any pause. The last sentence of the first part is still audible when the second part has just begun. In this way the composition constitutes an inseparable entirety. Both parts which under many respects are contrasting with each other are strictly related: the first part is composed to form a preparation for the second part, and the second part is the natural consequence of the first one. This formal model was adopted by Lutosławski for the first time in the String Quartet. The 2nd Symphony opened a way for other, new formal, harmonic solutions but also for other Polish composers.
