Dresden

In December 1980, under the composer’s baton, the Staatskapelle Dresden performed three works by Lutosławski in different styles: the Concerto for Orchestra, Jeux vénitiens and the songs Les espaces du sommeil. After the concert, the local reviewers could not get over their astonishment that the Concerto for Orchestra, which was the most popular with the listeners, was considered by the composer – and his words were quoted in the programme – to be a marginal work in his oeuvre. Meanwhile, Jeux vénitiens, which was most poorly received, was already deemed his ‘flagship’ work in textbooks of twentieth-century music history.