Opera Omnia 04

Album premiere: 2013

Publishers: National Forum of Music, CD Accord

Conductor: Stanisław Skrowaczewski

Performers: NFM Wrocław Philharmonic

There is a type of concert programme that many listeners do not like: two large works close in time and similar in form, but different in some way; a kind of ‘mi-parti’. Not different enough to make it interesting, but not similar enough to create a uniform whole. For example – this is an authentic example, once contested as a wasted opportunity during the visit of a renowned orchestra to Poland – one of Brahms’ symphonies and one of Franck’s. Or a Schubert symphony and a Schumann symphony. Or Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Or two parallel works by the same author.

However, there are conductors who like such programmes – and, more interestingly, can successfully present them. This is the case with this album. In the original plan of our series, the First Symphony was to be paired with the Third, completing the set that began with the recording of the ‘even’ symphonies. There were also other proposals submitted by various conductors. Finally, it was decided that Stanisław Skrowaczewski would conduct a concert built as such a ‘mi-parti’: two adjacent works by Lutosławski, from the 1940s and 1950s respectively, both in a multi-movement form. First, the first completed attempt at a large cyclical form (disregarding an unfinished Requiem from the composer’s student time), and after the intermission a summary of what we more or less vaguely call ‘neoclassicism’ and ‘folklorism’.

Rafał Augustyn, fragment of an essay from the album booklet

The unique series ‘Witold Lutosławski. Opera omnia’, released by the NFM and CD Accord, is a project presenting all the works of this outstanding Polish composer. The albums in this series are exclusive in terms of performance, production and editing.