Witold LUTOSLAWSKI (1913-1994)
Silesian Triptych (1951)* [9:28]
Lacrimosa (1937)* [4:07]
Paroles tissées (1965)** [16:22]
Sleep, sleep (1954)* [2:04]
Les Espaces du sommeil (1975)***[15:11]
Chantefleurs et Chantefables (1990)* [19:48]
Lucy Crowe (soprano)*; Toby Spence (tenor)**; Christopher Purves (baritone)***
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Edward Gardner
rec. 29-31 March 2011, Studio 1, BBC Maida Vale Studios, London
CHANDOS CHAN 10688 [67:40] 
Edward Gardner continues his excellent series of Lutoslawski recordings for
Chandos, with the orchestral works release already having achieved Recording
of the Month status.
In a vibrant recording, the lively Silesian Triptych makes for a marvellous
curtain raiser, its folk rhythms and colourful orchestration granted full
impact. The earliest work in this programme, Lacrimosa, is a terrific
vehicle for soprano Lucy Crowe. This is Lutoslawski’s only sacred piece, and
the only surviving fragment of a planned but never completed Requiem. If you
know and love Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater then this is a wonderful place
to extend the experience.
Paroles tissées or ‘Woven Words’ was one of Lutoslawski’s early pieces
in the distinctive style which made his name a force to be reckoned with in
the 20th century. Generating maximum effect from a relative minimum of instrumental
means, the textures and harmonic worlds generated take one into realms of
dreamlike imagination – often beautiful, sometimes fearful and even shocking.
Toby Spence’s delivery from the drama of ‘a thousand black horses” to the
chilling dark/light of “Sleep this pallor...” is excellent throughout.
Sleep, sleep brings us back from the brink, returning to a simpler
world of children’s song, but introducing a thread of directness of expression
which shines its light on later works such as Chantefleurs and Chantefables.
Between these lyrical masterpieces we are given one of Lutoslawski’s great
works from the 1970s, Les Espaces du sommeil. Christopher Purves’s
baritone is perfectly suited to the transparency of the orchestration in this
work, his tone often light and even breathless in expression. He also wins
the prize for most convincing French accent. The title translates as ‘The
Spaces of Sleep’, and once again the imagery is surrealist and dreamlike,
the fragmentary moments of birdlike filigree and dark atmosphere in the orchestra
moving and unsettling.
The programme is concluded with the longest and most recent piece on the disc,
Chantefleurs et Chantefables, which again brings us back from chasms
of epic profundity to more charming subjects. These two last pieces share
Robert Desnos as the author of their texts, but the inner life of the shorter
songs of Chantefleurs et Chantefables is one more of theatre and operatic
stagecraft than abstract landscapes of the imagination. Animals and plants
are brought to life, the character of their personality or movement indicated
in the orchestration and vocal lines. Lucy Crowe is marvellously in tune with
the psychology behind these portraits, and ranging from a darting grasshopper
which is both near and far, beauteous roses and their slightly obsessive picker,
to the sneakiest of Alligators.
These pieces are familiar through very good recordings such as that on Naxos
8.554283, which has the Silesian Triptych and Chantefleurs et Chantefables
alongside Venetian Games and the Symphony No.1. Antoni Wit
and his musicians are very good, but Edward Gardner is in a different league
in terms of subtlety, and the balance of the vocal solo against the orchestra
is more realistic in the Chandos recording. Likewise with Paroles tissées
and Les Espaces du sommeil paired on Naxos
8.553423. I’ve known and held these Polish performances in high regard
for a long time – and still do, but this Chandos newcomer brings me to places
I hadn’t yet discovered through the Antoni Wit performances. Piotr Kusiewicz
sounds almost ecclesiastical by comparison in Paroles tissées, and
Christopher Purves is also stronger and more tonally accurate in comparison
with Adam Kruszewski in Les Espaces. The Last Concert (see review)
is also a moving souvenir for Chantefleurs, but as a live performance
with the voice apparently slightly ‘off-mic’ and with flashes of distortion
in the peaks on the recording this doesn’t really compete in the same field
as the Chandos version.
All vocal texts are printed in the booklet in their original language and
in English translation, and the whole package is nicely designed as one would
expect. With the best lineup of soloists around and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
on top form, this was always going to be something a bit special, but it exceeds
even my expectations. Like a good novel or a potent poem, it’s the kind of
recording which you emerge from blinking, as if from a darkened cinema into
the light of day. In other words, it could quite conceivably change your view
of the world. Even if it’s only for a moment – and how long is a moment?
Dominy Clements
Total immersion Lutoslawski – really magical.