The Symphony No. 2 by the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski is an orchestral composition in two movements written between 1965 and 1967. The work exhibits Lutosławski's technique of "limited aleatoricism", where the individual instrumental parts are notated exactly, but their precise co-ordination is organised using controlled elements of chance.
Personal and musical transitions Lutosławski wrote his Symphony No. 2 between 1965 and 1967. The preceding years had been a time of transition for him and for Poland. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin had seized control of the country in the aftermath of World War II, and the iron-fisted cultural dictation of the Communist government severely limited both the output of Polish composers and their exposure to musical developments in the outside world between the 1949 and 1954. Many pieces, including Lutosławski's First Symphony, were condemned as formalist (focused on esoteric considerations of form rather than on speaking directly to the proletariat) and banned from public performance.Stucky (1981), pp. 35–6 and 60–1 In 1956, the Poles took advantage of Stalin's death to reform their government. The national ruling communist ideology became more liberal, especially regarding the arts.Stucky (1981), p. 61
Representing this shift, the first Warsaw Autumn (Poland's international music festival) took place in 1957. The purpose of this festival was to expose Polish audiences to new music which had been prohibited by the communist regime and promote the work of modern Polish composers.Stucky (1981), p. 62 Lutosławski's work Muzyka żałobna ("Music of Mourning" sometimes translated "Funeral Music") was featured in the 1958 festival.Stucky (1981), p. 77 In the decade that followed, Lutosławski's reputation flourished both in Poland and abroad; he traveled to many European and American music centers to serve as a music critic at music festivals, hear his works performed and receive various awards.Stucky (1981), pp. 64, 78, and 85
The Second Symphony marked a culmination of Lutosławski's music to that point. The years between the end of World War II and its completion had been a continuous effort to cement his personal style.Stucky (1981), p. 64 Lutosławski had completed his first symphony in 1947—a work that some have called neoclassicist in its extensive use of canon and adherence to the four-movement standard and sonata form in the first movement.Stucky (1981), pp. 28–30 Almost two decades separate the first and second symphonies, and musically, they are a world apart. In the process of composing Five Songs on texts of Kazimiera Iłłakowicz (1956–58), Muzyka żałobna (1958), Three Postludes (1959–64), and Jeux vénitiens (1960–61), he developed the harmonic and rhythmic elements that define the Second Symphony and other mature works. The second movement of the symphony, "Direct", even used some material that had been sketched and abandoned for a fourth postlude.Stucky (1981), p. 79
These hallmarks of Lutosławski's new style include harmonic aggregate chords using all twelve tones, macrorhythmic accelerando, texture as a formal element, and a preference for grouping instruments with similar colors.Stucky (1981), pp. 65, 70, 82, and 128 When Lutosławski heard John Cage's piano concerto, he began exploring limited aleatoricism, and this became a feature of his style, although he intentionally never extended his employment of chance techniques beyond rhythm. Lutosławski stated that this rhythmic technique allows the performer a more interpretive role while preserving the control of the composer.Stucky (1981), p. 110 Harmonic color preoccupied him; it was one way he tied himself to previous composers like Debussy.Stucky (1981), p. 113 For Lutosławski, color was a vertical phenomenon in music, created both by the instruments used together and the intervals their parts created.Kaczyński (1968), pp. 112–3 Lutosławski proceeded on the momentum of the Symphony No. 2 to write the Livre pour orchestre (1968), crystallizing his personal style even further.Stucky (1981), p. 172
Commission and early performances By the early 1960s, Lutosławski had so many offers for commissions that he accepted only those that aligned with his current compositional goals. Symphony No. 2 developed out of a commission from the Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Hamburg to commemorate the 100th concert in their series of new musical works.Stucky (1981), p. 88 Unfortunately, the entire symphony was not completed in time for the concert in Hamburg, so only the second movement, Direct, was performed by the Norddeutscher Rundfunk with Pierre Boulez conducting, on October 18, 1966.Lutosławski (2007), p. 149
The performance was met with great excitement and appreciation by all in attendance at the concert. Although the reception was positive, Lutosławski was disappointed by the partial nature of the music premiered. Less than a year later, on June 9, 1967, Symphony No. 2 (both Hesitant and Direct) was premiered by the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Lutosławski conducting.Kaczyński (1989) The next performance took place that year at the Warsaw Autumn.Stucky (1981) p. 89
Instrumentation The orchestra, as specified in the score:
Woodwinds
Brass
4 horns in F 3 trumpets in C 3 trombones 1 tuba
Percussion
3 timpani
5 tom-toms glockenspiel bass drum tambourine side drum tenor drum bells bamboo tubes gong 2 suspended cymbals xylophone vibraphone without motor
Keyboards
Strings harp 16 violins I 14 violins II 12 violas 9 celli 6 double basses
Instrumentation plays an important role in the first movement of the work, where six episodes are performed by different ensembles. Instrumentation in "Hésitant" (all locations given by conductor's marked downbeats on the score): EpisodeDownbeats Introduction: Brass Alone 1–31. Three Flutes, five tom-toms, and celesta4–7 Refrain: two oboes and English Horn8–92. Four stopped horns, side drum, parade drum, bass drum, harp10–12 Refrain: two oboes and English horn13–143. Three clarinets, vibraphone, piano15–17 Refrain: English horn and two bassoons18–194. Two cymbals, tam-tam, celesta, harp, piano20–24 Refrain: oboe, English horn, and bassoon25–265. Three flutes, three clarinets, three horns, five tom-toms, celesta, harp, piano27–30 Refrain: oboe, English horn, and bassoon316. Various small groups, which give way to the percussion. Multi-octave string clusters interrupt, leading to the final refrain.32–46 Refrain: begins with two oboes and English horn; taken over by trumpet, trombone, and tuba; then transferred back and forth between a group of three bassoons and a group of trumpet and two trombones.47–56
Form The second symphony is the first large-scale work for orchestra to use Lutosławski's new conception of two-movement form. After its success he began to refine this technique for use in future works.Jacobson (1996), p. 111 Lutosławski believed that form should be a vital but simple part of composition, "even...describable in one sentence."Kaczyński (1968), p. 105 In his conception of two-movement form, the first movement is "preparatory, introductory in character"; its musical thoughts remain "unsaid", and the movement as a whole sounds aphoristic.Nikolska (1994), pp. 95–6 The second movement then carries the bulk of the symphony's aesthetic weight; it is the "occurrence" that the first movement prepares. Lutosławski connects this feeling of proportion, especially in the presence of only one emotionally and semantically complex movement, to the symphonies of eighteenth-century Vienna and Haydn in particular. The Second Symphony only has one true point of climax—in the second movement—which goes against the symphonic principle of Beethoven and others that distribute the 'weight' of their symphonies more evenly.Stucky (1981), p. 130
Also in the style of earlier Western music, his work demonstrates closed form. Closed form compositions are intended to lead the listener down a specific path, both melodically and harmonically. A simple example of a melodic trait of closed form is the use and fragmentation of motives; a harmonic example is the use of progressions to lure the listener to expect something, such as a climax or an ending.Lutosławski (2007), pp. 133–5 The symphony demonstrates on a large scale the importance of motion towards a musical goal—the sort of tension and release that is a foundational principle of Western music.Stucky (1981), p. 126
I. Hésitant
In the second symphony, these ideas manifest in the following way. The first movement, Hésitant, is a series of six episodes, building in intensity throughout the movement. According to Lutosławski, All the episodes unfold in the same way: a short phrase emerges tentatively and then subsides for a brief moment. Only then does the true beginning of every episode follow. None of the episodes has an actual ending. The growing boldness and mounting momentum of the musical action is followed by a pause, as if the energy had been spent. Then a few tentative attempts are made to take up the episode again. All the attempts are in vain and the theme is abandoned.Lutosławski (2007), p. 140 Each of the episodes is followed by a refrain played by the double-reed instruments. The dynamic tempos and varied colors of the episodes alternate with the static refrains.Kaczyński (1968), p. 105. The first movement could be summarized as a series of interrupted passages that push toward a climax that never materializes.
II. Direct The second movement, Direct, begins while "the last phrase of the first movement still echoes." Lutosławski again offers a cogent explanation of the movement's shape: The second movement, unlike the first, unfolds continuously without any pauses. Individual musical ideas overlap one another frequently, creating uninterrupted discourse. This development heads straight for the final solution without any digressions. That is why this movement is called Direct.Lutosławski (2007), p. 141 According to Lutosławski, this second movement subdivides into a series of five overlapping "evolutionary stages". Demarcating the first three of these stages is very difficult, but the fourth and fifth stages are more obvious. The fourth stage begins at downbeat 133 and ends just before downbeat 151; the fifth and final stage begins at downbeat 151 and ends after downbeat 160. Across these five stages, one may observe two significant rhythmic processes: a process of unification from ad libitum playing to metered playing and a process of acceleration from longer sections with sustained material to shorter sections in faster tempos with quicker rhythmic material, producing rhythmic acceleration on two levels, that of microrhythm, the surface rhythms within sections, and on the level of macrorhythm, the lengths of sections.Discussion of the separation of microrhythm and macrorhythm may be found in Nikolska (1994), p. 77; more detailed discussion of these rhythmic processes can be found in both Rae (1994), p. 106 and Nikolska (1994), p. 140. This process pushes to the climax of the movement and the symphony as a whole, which occurs When the simple rhythm, which has been achieved gradually over a considerable period, is transformed suddenly into an extremely complex rhythmical structure when the whole orchestra begins to play ad libitum. It is as if a building which has been painstakingly put together over a long time suddenly shatters into thousands of fragments.Kaczyński (1984), p. 37
Harmonically, the climax of this piece is marked by a twelve-tone chord based on 5ths and 6ths that falls away and almost immediately makes another effort. This too is ultimately unsuccessful, and softer and softer chords lead to the end of the piece.Stucky (1981), pp. 164–5