Composers / Witold Lutosławski / Places catalog

Cleveland

Cleveland was the first American city to hear music by Witold Lutosławski performed live. Stanisław Skrowaczewski took advantage of an invitation from the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra to include the Concerto for Orchestra on his programme in 1958, and a year later Musique funèbre. Many years later, those two works were recorded by the orchestra under the baton of its current maestro,Christoph von Dohnányi.

Cleveland was also the first city in the world to honour Lutosławski with his ‘own festival’. In the summer of 1971, the director of the Cleveland Institute of Music, the pianist Victor Babin, invited Lutosławski to attend the Contemporary Arts Festival. His music was to form the principal strand of the festival programme. Thus a few chamber works were performed, and a symphonic concert was also given, with the university orchestra performing Livre pour orchestra under Robert Sadin and, after the intermission, the Second Symphony under the composer’s baton. Lutosławski’s stay also included seminars at theCleveland Institute of Music and on the music departments of both the local universities, and the visit was rounded off with the presentation of an honorary doctorate to the composer.

Lutosławski’s music has been played in Cleveland many times, and one reviewer, commenting on a performance of the Livre pour orchestra, this time with the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra under Witold Rowicki, portrayed the qualities of aleatory technique in a highly vivid way, writing about the work’s second Chapitre: ‘Most of the measures in this movement contain about 50 written notes. If the players performed them absolutely together, one would hear fifty pizzicati. But if they do not play them together, there can be as many as 2,000 pizzicato attacks in a single measure!’

The presence of Lutosławski’s music in Cleveland was crowned by a monographic concert in 1988, to which the orchestra invited him in the dual role of composer and conductor.

Place Category
Aix-en-Provence Appearances
Aldeburgh Appearances
Amsterdam Appearances
Århus Education
Aspen Appearances
Austin Other
Baranów Sandomierski Other
Basel Other
Basztowa Street Performance spaces
Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts Other
BBC Orchestra and other ensembles Appearances
Belfast Other
Berea Performance spaces
Berlin Appearances
Białystok Education
Boston Appearances
Brisbane Other
Budapest Other
Calgary Education, Other
Cambridge Other
Celle Publishers / Bookshops
Chicago Appearances
Cincinnati Other
Cleveland Appearances
Cologne Other
Copenhagen Appearances
Cracow Philharmonic Performance spaces
Dartington Education
Donaueschingen Other
Dresden Other
Drozdowo Flats
Düsseldorf Appearances
Edinburgh Other
Evian Appearances
Filmography Radio / TV
Florence Appearances
Geneva Appearances
Glasgow Other
Graz Other
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Hagen Other, Performance spaces
Hamburg Other
Hanover (New Hampshire) Other
Helsinki Education
Herkulessaal Appearances, Performance spaces
Houston Other
Huddersfield Appearances
Indianapolis Other
Jagiellonian University Education
Katowice Other
Kazimierz nad Wisłą Other
Komorów Flats
Łagów Other
Lancaster Appearances
La Rochelle Appearances
Leeds Appearances
Leipzig Education, Performance spaces, Publishers / Bookshops
Lisbon Appearances
Liverpool Appearances
Łomża Education
London Sinfonietta Performance spaces
Los Angeles Appearances
Louisville (Kentucky) Other
Lublin Appearances
Lucerne Other
Madrid Appearances
Manchester Appearances
Mikołajki Other
Milan Appearances
Montreal Appearances
Moscow Appearances
Munich Philharmonic Appearances, Performance spaces
New York Appearances
Odense Education, Performance spaces
Olsztyn Education
Opio (near Grasse) Flats
Oslo Other
Paris Appearances
Pittsburgh Appearances
Poznań Other
Prague Appearances
PWM EDITION Publishers / Bookshops
Riga Performance spaces
Rome Other
Rotterdam Appearances
Royal Albert Hall Appearances, Performance spaces
Royal Philharmonic Society Appearances
Saint Paul (Minnesota) Other
Salzburg Other
San Francisco Appearances
Strasbourg Appearances
Stawisko
Stockholm Appearances
Sydney Appearances
Szczecin Other
Tanglewood Education, Other
Tokyo Appearances
Toronto Education
Toruń Education
Venice Performance spaces
Vienna Performance spaces
Villars-sur-Ollon Other
Warsaw Appearances, Flats, Other, Performance spaces
Washington Appearances
Wawel Appearances
Wehr near Rheinfelden Other
Wrocław Other, Performance spaces
Wzdów Other
Zagreb Performance spaces
Zegrze Other
Zurich Performance spaces