Lisa Jakelski & Nicholas Reyland 
Lutoslawski’s Worlds 

Witold Lutoslawski was one of the most important composers of the twentieth century, whose significance extends far beyond his native Poland. His vita is just as captivating as his compositionally path-breaking music.


Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) was one of the most important composers of the twentieth century. His significance extends far beyond his native Poland: his classical music was premiered by internationally renowned performers likethe La Salle Quartet and Krystian Zimerman, and his symphonies, concertante, chamber, instrumental and vocal music are produced by the leading labels of the recording industry. Lutoslawski’s vita is just as captivating as his compositionally path-breaking music. He lived through the Second World War and brutal German oppression of Poland, negotiated the challenges of Soviet influence and fluctuating local politics during Poland’s post-war transition to communism, and finally strove for a new voice in the post-Stalin Thaw of the mid-1950s.


Lutoslawski’s Worlds is a landmark volume which looks at the multi-faceted spheres that informed the composer’s life and works andrepresents a new departure in the study of his music. Throughout his life, he steered musicologists away from the connections between his extraordinary biography and concert music. He also sought to minimize scholarly attention tothe many other spheres of creative activity – popular music, theatre music, film scoring, propaganda music, and educational music – that occupied him. In this volume, for the first time, the world’s leading Lutoslawski scholars consider the full range of his musical output and the biographical, cultural and historical contexts in which those musics were created. It contends that all of Lutoslawski’s worlds are equally worthy of study, because each represents an opportunity better to understand the life and music of a figure of paramount importance to the critical and cultural history of twentieth-century music.

LISA JAKELSKI is Associate Professor of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester.


NICHOLAS REYLAND is Head of Undergraduate Programmes at the Royal Northern College of Music.


Contributors: STANISLAW BEDKOWSKI, ANDREA F. BOHLMAN, DANUTA GWIZDALANKA, LISA JAKELSKI, MICHAEL L. KLEIN, IWONA LINDSTEDT, WIOLETA MURAS, KATARZYNA NALIWAJEK-MAZUREK, NICHOLAS REYLAND, ZBIGNIEW SKOWRON, STEVEN STUCKY, ADRIAN THOMAS, DAVID TOMPKINS, LISA COOPER VEST

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Introduction – Lisa Jakelski and Nicholas Reyland

Witold Lutoslawski’s
Muzyka zalobna [1958] and the Construction of Genius – Lisa Cooper Vest

Personal Loss, Cultural Grief, and Lutoslawski’s Music of Mourning – Nicholas Reyland

Lutoslawski’s String Quartet: Mourning, Melancholia, and Modern Subjectivity – Michael L. Klein

Behind the Curtain of Oblivion: Lutoslawski’s Music for Theatre and Radio Plays – Wioleta Muras

Derwid as Lutoslawski’s Patron – Danuta Gwizdalanka

Witold Lutoslawski in Occupied Warsaw – Katarzyna Naliwajek-Mazurek

Lutoslawski and Sonoristics – Iwona Lindstedt

Lutoslawski on Contemporary Music: Critical Commentary in Letters and Documents from the Lutoslawski Correspondence Collection – Stanislaw Bedkowski

Witold Lutoslawski’s Artistic Diary: an Unknown Document of the Composer’s Creative Path – Zbigniew Skowron

MAT. LUDOWE: The Lutos File – Adrian Thomas

Lutoslawski and Stalinism: Contextualizing Artistic and Political Choices around 1950 – David G. Tompkins

Lutoslawski’s Political Refrains – Andrea F. Bohlman

Lutoslawski, Revived and Remixed – Lisa Jakelski

Heart and Brain, Tradition and Modernism: Lutoslawski and the Continuing Story of Harmony – Steven Stucky

Selected Bibliography