Composers / Witold Lutosławski / Places catalog

Leipzig

Leipzig was the hub of the new music movement in the GDR, and so for Witold Lutosławski it was like a first ‘port of call’ in East Germany. However, due to the cultural policies of the then East German authorities, organising a concert with music like that which Lutosławski composed continued to encounter obstacles for quite some time. In 1969, a performance of the Second Symphony was planned in Leipzig, but – as the composer soon found out – the organisers were told to withdraw the work from the programme; in the censored correspondence of that time, the reasons behind the decision were not given.

Three years later, inviting Lutosławski to a concert, anxious about audience numbers, the organisers decided not to fill an entire concert with his compositions. After a first part comprising his Musique funèbre, Five Songs, sung by Roswitha Trexler, and Livre pour orchestra, the second half of the concert brought a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Les Noces, conducted byHorst Neumann. It turned out that the audience gave greater applause to Lutosławski than to the performers of Stravinsky’s work, and after such a successful first contact the composer was invited to Leipzig again three years later. He also came here the following decade, as a guest of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester (now the MDR), which included a recording of Musique funèbre under the composer’s baton on a disc released to mark its seventy-fifth anniversary.

At the initiative of Siegfried Thiele, who taught composition at Leipzig conservatory, Lutosławski was invited many times to take seminars with students. Another seminar was planned for the spring of 1994, but the composer died in the meantime.

It was in Leipzig, boasting a centuries-long publishing tradition, that the first German-language book about Lutosławski was published. In 1976, the Reclam publishing house issued a translation of the conversations conducted with the composer by Tadeusz Kaczyński (Gespräche mit Witold Lutosławski).

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