Aix-en-Provence

In the summer of 1980, Witold Lutosławski was invited to Aix-en-Provence for a three-week ‘musical holiday’ organised by the Centre Acanthes. He and Henri Dutilleux were the principal guests of the concerts and meetings held in the eighteenth-century Gaumont Palace. Lutosławski appeared in five different roles: composer, conductor, lecturer, composition teacher and presenter of his works during public concerts. During that time, Gilbert Amy conducted the European premiere of Lutosławski’s Novelette, whilst the composer himself conducted his Cello Concerto. A concert featuring the Parrenin Quartet, in which Lutosławski’s String Quartet was played twice, was regarded as a highlight of the festival. The two renditions were separated by the composer’s commentary. A completely different atmosphere surrounded a concert featuring the Trois poèmes d’Henri Michaux. Tadeusz Kaczyński, who attended the concert, wrote that ‘they were performed in the garden of the Conservatory, next to the street, with the accompaniment of birdsong, passing cars and the protests of unmusical neighbours from the other side of the street’.