Witold Roman Lutosławski (Polish: [ˈvitɔlt lutɔˈswafskʲi] ; 25 January 1913 – 7 February 1994) was a Polish composer and conductor. Among the major composers of 20th-century classical music, he is "generally regarded as the most significant Polish composer since Szymanowski, and possibly the greatest Polish composer since Chopin". His compositions—of which he was a notable conductor—include representatives of most traditional genres, aside from opera: symphonies, concertos, orchestral song cycles, other orchestral works, and chamber works. Among his best known works are his four symphonies, the Variations on a Theme by Paganini (1941), the Concerto for Orchestra (1954), and his cello concerto (1970).
During his youth, Lutosławski studied piano and composition in Warsaw. His early works were influenced by Polish folk music and demonstrated a wide range of rich atmospheric textures. His folk-inspired music includes the Concerto for Orchestra (1954)—which first brought him international renown—and Dance Preludes (1955), which he described as a "farewell to folklore". From the late 1950s he began developing new, characteristic composition techniques. He introduced limited aleatoric elements, while retaining tight control of his music's material, architecture, and performance. He also evolved his practice of building harmonies from small groups of musical intervals.
During World War II, after narrowly escaping German capture, Lutosławski made a living playing the piano in Warsaw bars. After the war, Stalinist authorities banned his First Symphony for being "formalist": accessible only to an elite. Rejecting anti-formalism as an unjustified retrograde step, Lutosławski resolutely strove to maintain his artistic integrity, providing artistic support to the Solidarity movement throughout the 1980s. He received numerous awards and honours, including the Grawemeyer Award and a Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal. In 1994, Lutosławski was awarded Poland's highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle.
Witold Roman Lutosławski was born on 25 January 1913, in Warsaw, Poland. His parents were both born into the Polish landed nobility; they owned estates in the area of Drozdowo. His father Józef was involved in the Polish National Democratic Party ("Endecja"), and the Lutosławski family became intimate with its founder, Roman Dmowski (Witold Lutosławski's middle name was Roman). Józef Lutosławski studied in Zürich, where in 1904 he met and married a fellow student, Maria Olszewska, who later became Lutosławski's mother. Józef pursued his studies in London, where he acted as correspondent for the National-Democratic newspaper, Goniec. He continued to be involved in National Democracy politics after returning to Warsaw in 1905, and took over the management of the family estates in 1908. Witold Roman Lutosławski, the youngest of three brothers, was born in Warsaw shortly before the outbreak of World War I.
In 1915, with Russia at war with Germany, Prussian forces drove towards Warsaw. The Lutosławskis travelled east to Moscow, where Józef remained politically active, organising Polish Legions ready for any action that might liberate Poland (which had been divided over a century earlier—Warsaw was part of Tsarist Russia). Dmowski's strategy was for Russia to guarantee security for a new Polish state. In 1917, the February Revolution forced the Tsar to abdicate, and the October Revolution started a new Soviet government that made peace with Germany. Józef's activities were now in conflict with the Bolsheviks, who arrested him and his brother Marian. Thus, although fighting stopped on the Eastern Front in 1917, the Lutosławskis were prevented from returning home. The brothers were interned in Butyrskaya prison in central Moscow, where Witold—by then aged five—visited his father. Józef and Marian were executed by a firing squad in September 1918, some days before their scheduled trial.
After the war, the family returned to the newly independent Poland, only to find their estates ruined. After his father's death, other members of the family played an important part in Witold's early life, especially Józef's half-brother Kazimierz Lutosławski, a priest and politician.
At age six, Lutosławski started two years of piano lessons in Warsaw. After the Polish-Soviet War the family left Warsaw to return to Drozdowo, but after a few years of running the estates with limited success, his mother returned to Warsaw. She worked as a physician, and translated books for children from English. In 1924, Lutosławski entered secondary school (Stefan Batory Gymnasium) while continuing piano lessons. A performance of Karol Szymanowski's Third Symphony deeply affected him. In 1925, he started violin lessons at the Warsaw Music School. In 1931, he enrolled at Warsaw University to study mathematics, and in 1932 he formally joined the composition classes at the Conservatory. His only composition teacher was Witold Maliszewski, a renowned Polish composer who had been a pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Lutosławski was given a strong grounding in musical structures, particularly movements in sonata form. In 1932, he gave up the violin, and in 1933 he discontinued his mathematics studies to concentrate on the piano and composition. As a student of Jerzy Lefeld, he gained a diploma for piano performance from the Conservatory in 1936, after presenting a virtuoso program including Schumann's Toccata and Beethoven's fourth piano concerto. His diploma for composition was awarded by the same institution in 1937.
Military service followed; Lutosławski was trained in signalling and radio operating in Zegrze near Warsaw. He completed his Symphonic Variations in 1939. The work was premiered by the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Grzegorz Fitelberg, with the performance broadcast on radio on 9 March 1939. Like most young Polish composers, Lutosławski wanted to continue his education in Paris. His plans for further musical study were dashed in September 1939, when Germany invaded western Poland and Russia invaded eastern Poland. Lutosławski was mobilised with the radio unit for the Kraków Army. He was soon captured by German soldiers, but escaped while being marched to prison camp, walking 250 miles (400 km) back to Warsaw. Lutosławski's brother was captured by Russian soldiers and later died in a Siberian labour camp.
To earn a living, Lutosławski joined "Dana Ensemble", the first Polish revellers, as an arranger-pianist, singing in "Ziemiańska Cafe". He then formed a piano duo with friend and fellow composer Andrzej Panufnik, performing together in Warsaw cafés. Their repertoire consisted of a wide range of music in their own arrangements, including the first incarnation of Lutosławski's Variations on a Theme by Paganini, a transcription of the 24th Caprice for solo violin by Niccolò Paganini. Defiantly, they sometimes played Polish music (the Nazis banned Polish music in Poland—including that of Frédéric Chopin), and composed Resistance songs. Listening in cafés was the only way in which the Poles of German-occupied Warsaw could hear live music; putting on concerts was impossible since the Germans occupying Poland prohibited any organised gatherings. In café Aria, where they played, Lutosławski met his future wife Maria Danuta Bogusławska, a sister of the writer Stanisław Dygat.
Lutosławski left Warsaw in July 1944 with his mother, just a few days before the Warsaw Uprising. During the complete destruction of the city by Germans after the failure of the uprising, most of his music was lost, as were the family's Drozdowo estates. He was able to salvage only a few scores and sketches; of the 200 or so arrangements that Lutosławski and Panufnik had worked on for their piano duo, only Lutosławski's Variations on a Theme by Paganini survived. Lutosławski returned to the ruins of Warsaw after the Polish-Soviet treaty in April 1945.
During the postwar years, Lutosławski worked on his First Symphony—sketches of which he had salvaged from Warsaw—which he had started in 1941. It was first performed in 1948, conducted by Fitelberg. To provide for his family, he also composed music that he termed functional, such as the Warsaw Suite (written to accompany a silent film depicting the city's reconstruction), sets of Polish Carols, and the study pieces for piano, Melodie Ludowe ("Folk Melodies").